Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024) returns to the world of his 1988 film, with Michael Keaton again playing the troublesome “bio-exorcist” Beetlejuice. Winona Ryder reprises her role as Lydia Deetz, now a television host whose show, *Ghost House*, draws on her ability to see the dead. Catherine O’Hara also returns as Lydia’s stepmother, Delia. The sequel adds Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s teenage daughter, Astrid, whose relationship with her mother is strained.

The Deetz family reunites in Winter River, Connecticut, after the death of Lydia’s father, Charles. At the family’s old house, Astrid meets a local teenager named Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti. What begins as a flirtation draws her into the afterlife and puts her in danger. Lydia turns to Beetlejuice for help, despite their history and his continuing desire to marry her. Justin Theroux plays Rory, Lydia’s boyfriend and the producer of her television show, whose interest in marriage adds another complication to her return home.

The film also gives Beetlejuice a pursuer of his own. Monica Bellucci plays Delores, his former wife, who reassembles herself in the afterlife and hunts him down. Willem Dafoe appears as Wolf Jackson, a former action-film actor who now works as a detective among the dead. The sequel brings back the striped suit, the miniature model of Winter River and the sandworms, while expanding the bureaucratic, visually eccentric afterlife introduced in the first film.

Burton directed from a screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who had previously worked with him on the Netflix series *Wednesday*, also starring Ortega. Danny Elfman, the composer of the original *Beetlejuice*, returned to score the sequel. Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara’s involvement links the new film directly to Burton’s earlier story rather than merely revisiting its title and setting.

*Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* opened the 81st Venice International Film Festival in August 2024 before its theatrical release in September. Its arrival came 36 years after the first film, which ended with Lydia living with the Maitlands while Beetlejuice remained trapped in the afterlife. The sequel instead finds Lydia navigating adulthood, parenthood and grief, with Astrid’s predicament forcing her back into contact with the ghost she once tried to escape. Its central reunion is therefore not only Beetlejuice’s return, but the Deetz family’s return to the house where their encounters with the dead began.