The juice is loose in this September's riotous comedy-horror sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Director Tim Burton, master of the macabre, returns to the territory of his hit 1988 movie Beetlejuice, reuniting us with Michael Keaton's hilarious undead bioexorcist as he rises from the grave to cause more chaos.
Several decades after the events of the original, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is once again confronted with the spectre of Beetlejuice, the demonic prankster to whom she almost got betrothed as a teenager. This spells bad news not just for Lydia but her mother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) and Lydia's ostracised daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, star of the Burton-produced series Wednesday). Beetlejuice, meanwhile, is being pursued by afterlife investigator Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) as to the whereabouts of the undead Delores (Monica Bellucci).
If you need a refresher on the events of Beetlejuice before watching the sequel, then you've come to the right place. Bring yourself up to speed with our recap of the story so far.
- Married couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) enjoy an idyllic life in their picture-perfect country home in Winter River, Connecticut
- While on their way to the shops, their car crashes through a covered bridge into the river below
- Adam and Barbara later return home, apparently none the worse for wear, but soon realise they both died in the car accident
- They realise this when stumbling upon the Handbook for the Recently Deceased; Adam also realises he can't leave the house or he will end up in a bizarre sci-fi landscape populated by deadly sandworms
- Now that they're ghosts, Adam and Barbara are helpless to prevent their dream home from being sold to the Deetzes, a yuppyish family from New York
- Mother Delia is a sculptor who plans to turn the house into an art-deco nightmare; her husband Charles (Jeffrey Jones) is a real estate developer
- Consulting the Handbook, the Maitlands are transported to the afterlife, which they discover is a bureaucratic nightmare
- Their caseworker Juno makes it clear that Adam and Barbara must stay put in the house for 125 years and if they want to get rid of the Deetzes, they must scare them off
- Adam and Barbara's inventive attempts, including turning their faces inside out and removing their eyeballs, fail to work
- However, Charles' introverted goth daughter Lydia suspects something is off with the house and eventually makes contact with Adam and Barbara
- Lydia attributes this sixth sense to her "strange and unusual" nature and eventually makes friends with the undead Maitlands; however, they still want to get rid of the Deetzes
- Against Juno's advice, the Maitlands contact the miscreant Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), pronounced Beetlejuice, Juno's former assistant and a now-freelance "bio-exorcist", to scare the Deetzes away
- The Maitlands discover that Beetlejuice's resting place resides within the scale model of Wind River that resides in the attic, and they summon him by saying his name three times
- Resurrecting the infamous bioexorcist, they find him crude and offputting and he soon wreaks havoc on the Deetzes
- Beetlejuice delights in tormenting the Deetz family, at one point leading them in a ghostly possession to the tune of Harry Belafone's 'Banana Boat Song'
- Charles is inspired to use Beetlejuice's ghostly activities to drum up interest in Winter River as a hotbed of paranormal activity but he needs more evidence
- Using the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, Charles' interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix) conducts what he thinks is a séance and summons Adam and Barbara, using their wedding clothes, but they begin to age and decay, as Otho unwittingly performs an exorcism instead
- Lydia reaches out to Beetlejuice for help but he will only agree to save the Maitlands if Lydia agrees to marry him; she says his name three times and allows him entry into the corporeal realm
- While Beetlejuice prepares a mock wedding ceremony to marry Lydia, the newly revived Maitlands intervene with Barbara riding a sandworm that eats Beetlejuice
- With order restored, the Maitlands and the Deetzes learn to live in harmony, and Lydia sheds her goth image
- Barbara and Adam form a stronger bond with Lydia, and she persuades them to occasionally unleash their ghostly powers, including spirit possession
- Beetlejuice finds himself trapped in the familiar afterlife waiting room where, after attempting to queue jump in front of a witch doctor, has his head shrunk down to a miniature size
Are you all caught up? Then it's showtime: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is released on September 6th. Click the link below to book your Cineworld tickets.
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