Who's the ghost with the most? Beetlejuice, of course, and the delightfully grotesque supernatural anti-hero returns this September in the horror-comedy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
The juice is loose when Michael Keaton's wickedly scuzzy undead exorcist is summoned from beyond the grave to wreak more memorable chaos. Tim Burton is back at the helm for this long-overdue sequel, which is set to be loaded with the director's macabre set design, plus tangible make-up and stop-motion effects.
Us Beetlejuice OG fans have been waiting a long time for this Burton/Keaton reunion and the new trailer indicates it's been well worth the wait. Check it out below.
Like the look of that? Well, we appreciate that many of you may not be familiar with the original Beetlejuice film (it was released in 1988), so here are the trailer moments that act as nostalgic callbacks to the first movie.
The Maitlands/Deetz house and the covered bridge (trailer timestamp: 18 to 25 seconds)
Beetlejuice centred around Adam and Barbara Maitland, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. At the beginning of the film, they die when their car runs through a covered bridge and lands in the river below.
They then come back as undead spirits, only to discover that the comically vile Deetz family has bought out their beloved home intending to turn it into a grotesque art deco nightmare.
The added rub is that only the Deetz's goth daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) can see and communicate with Adam and Barbara. The Maitlands are then forced to summon bio-exorcist Betelgeuse, pronounced 'Beetlejuice', to remove the Deetz's from their home. Big mistake, as comic chaos then ensues.
The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer establishes the same sense of location (in reality, the town of Corinth in Vermont). We see Lydia's grown-up daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, star of the Tim Burton-produced Wednesday) grappling with school bullying and the perennial sense of adolescent ennui as she cycles across the same fateful covered bridge, plus other familiar locations.
Betelguese's costume and undead hiding place (trailer timestamp: 50 to 55 seconds)
Michael Keaton's Betelguese, pronounced 'Beetlejuice', is a masterclass in grotesque comic construction. The trailer for the sequel brings all the hilariously morbid vibes we've been missing, from the shock of green hair to the frantic mannerisms and the stripey black and white suit.
The sequel establishes continuity with the original film by having Beetlejuice rise from the Maitlands' model, and the eagle-eyed will have spotted the same familiar neon sign pointing towards Beetlejuice's resting place.
Interestingly, it's Lydia who appears to summon Beetlejuice this time, as ever by saying his name three times. Why she does this isn't clear from the trailer – the events of the first film should act as a reminder of why this isn't a good idea (scroll down to find out why), but hey, then we wouldn't get a sequel, would we?
There's another twist: Beetlejuice is seemingly being hunted by Willem Dafoe's undead investigator Wolf Jackson over the whereabouts of the equally undead, and newly stapled-together, Delores.
Shrunken-head guy and the afterlife waiting room (trailer time-stamp: 1:06 to 1:10)
For the record, the shrunken-head dude is now called Bob (according to his name tag) and there appear to be several different versions of him in the bureaucracy-afflicted afterlife
Remember that this guy made two brief but utterly hilarious appearances in the original Beetlejuice. At the end of the first film, we find out that it's the result of a witch doctor who does the same to Beetlejuice after the latter tries to jump ahead in the afterlife queue.
Actually, on that note, how has Beetlejuice got his normal-sized head back? That's a question we want answered.
Catherine O'Hara's possessed dancing (trailer time-stamp: 1:52 to 1:55)
One of the most memorable scenes in Beetlejuice involved a table of people becoming possessed by the spirit of Harry Belafonte's 'Banana Boat' song.
This includes Catherine O'Hara's amusingly yuppyish Delia Deetz, and there's an homage of sorts in the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer when the returning Delia appears to become possessed all over again. That it's occurring in the middle of a church stands to make the scene even funnier.
The sandworm (trailer time-stamp: 2:04)
The stop-motion sandworm appeared in the first Beetlejuice when the undead Maitlands' landed on Saturn while using their supernatural powers to skip between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Barbara Maitland then uses this to her advantage later on when she rides the sandworm back into her former home to interrupt the nuptials of Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz. The brief appearance of the same sandworm in the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is all we need for nostalgic kicks.
The elasticated faces (trailer time-stamp: 2:15 to 2:19)
In Beetlejuice, Adam Maitland attempted to scare the Deetz's away from the house by stretching his face and removing his eyeballs. Sadly, it didn't work as the Deetz's couldn't see him or Barbara.
There's an homage of sorts at the end of the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer when the title character, evidently tired of influencers and screen time, stretches out the faces of several churchgoers and then zaps them inside their own phones.
Maybe we could all do with a Beetlejuice patrolling concerts and other public venues?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is released on September 6th. If you're impatient for more creepy content at Cineworld, click the link below to discover 2024's upcoming horror movies.
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