Movie Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

4.5 stars out of 5

Pee-wee put Tim Burton on the map, but it was 1988’s Beetlejuice that really established his reputation as a master macabre mischief-maker. Yes, he’s occasionally strayed from the darkness since — Big Fish, Big Eyes, Dumbo, etc. — but like the band Garbage, Burton is really only happy when it rains. I’m glad to report that with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, it’s raining, it’s pouring, the older Tim is scoring.

Well, it’s actually regular collaborator Danny Elfman who does the scoring, just one of the reuniting class of ’88. Catherine O’Hara, repopularized by Schitt’s Creek, returns as the art-damaged mom. Winona Ryder, who I’ll always recall from the cover of the 1991 Rolling Stone Hot Issue, is the goth daughter all grown up. And Michael Keaton — who powered the original film with his manic comic performance and a decade ago earned a Best Actor nomination — is back as Betelgeuse, and the ’Juice is loose!

Notably and understandably absent is dad Jeffrey Jones, who was canceled before it was fashionable. But the writers cleverly use his character’s untimely demise as a jumping-off point for the story. Screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar previously worked with Burton on Wednesday. That series clearly reinvigorated the director’s spooky specialty, and he smartly plucks lead Jenna Ortega to play Winona’s gloomy offspring.

Joining the cast are Justin Theroux as Winona’s overly-woke boyfriend, Willem Dafoe as a (dead) TV actor who doesn’t always remember he was just playing a cop, and Burton’s girlfriend Monica Bellucci as a literally soul-sucking femme fatale fatality. (I miss you, Helena Bonham Carter!)

Much of the action centers around the Deetz family’s Psycho-like house in Winter River. The lack of Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis happily haunting the attic is quickly explained away. However, not mentioned is the disappearance of O’Hara’s very-80s “addition” to the house; I guess it just didn’t fit the mood.

Gough and Millar load the script with various mini-plots — all fun — and only a director as skillful as Burton could weave them all together, building the comic intensity, doubling down on hilarious special effects, and adding just enough mother/daughter sweetness. Everyone, especially Keaton, seems to be really enjoying themselves, and I just found the movie totally satisfying. If they want to do another sequel and add one more He Who Must Not Be Named to the title (no not that dope Voldemort; the original Bad Boy of ’88!), I will gladly hang out in the afterworld waiting room till it happens.