Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Currently only in theaters

Runtime: 1 Hour and 44 Minutes

Rated PG-13

IT’S SHOW TIME! Beetlejuice returns after over thirty years to scare a few laughs out of fans and a newer generation. The death of Lydia’s father brings her and her stepmother back the original haunted house, complete with the dusty town model. This time Lydia has her teen daughter and boyfriend and manager with her.

Themes:

Death, the great beyond, hauntings, ghosts, funerals, possession, handbook for the recently deceased, stepparents, family, art, pills, loss, grieving, murder, the soul train, liars, fakes, first wives, weddings, bird watching, Halloween, loopholes, sandworms, dating, truly living, making memories, helping others, mourning, mother-daughter relations, cake, and Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

Language:

A*s - 2 B*tch - 1 D*mn - 3 F*ck - 1 (once almost said and once beeped) Hell - 4 Piss - 1 Puss - 1 Sh*t - 10 (once written) Religious Exclamations - 7

Stuff to be aware of: “The Juice is loose.”

Gore - There are multiple dead individuals in the movie and their bodys reflect how they were killed in life. Here are a few from the film (but not all): A woman with a knife stuck out of her head, a janitor that has Draino dripping from his mouth, a guy bit in half by a shark, a guy wrapped up with a snake, a guy who melts in a hazmat suit, mummy with mummified cat, guy missing part of his head (you can see his skull and brains), a man eaten by piranhas, and several that look kind of like zombies.

A woman also gives birth to the baby in a very unnatural (and supposed to be humorous) way. Her belly quickly shows signs of pregnancy, her water breaks spilling everywhere, and a baby comes out. The baby is very gross-looking and comes out crawling fast and bites people. He later kills a few people and blood gushes out dramatically. A fly crawls in one side of his nose and out the other.

There is a scene where someone holds a beating heart. There is a stop-motion animation scene where a man gets eaten by a shark and blood splashes up covering the screen. A man opens his jacket and his guts spill out everywhere.

There is a lot of random blood, this is usually comical. There is an extended scene where a woman’s body is in many pieces and she staples all her pieces back together.

Sexual - Bird mating rituals are mentioned. There are pop-up adds on a person’s phone that mention Beetlejuice and words like “sexy” and “love connection.” Two teens kiss. A man mentions that his child is a “leg man.” One character is referred to as a, “horny handyman.”

There is a scene in which a story is being told and two people have sex. They are on the bed and then through shadows and pillows being tossed about you can guess what is happening. One character mentioned that he is into “some freaky things.”

Scary - There is a haunted house scene where cabinets and doors open and shut. The lights go out. There are several jump scares where people show up out of nowhere. The sandworm and dead people could all be considered scary to some. One character sucks the soul/life out of the dead characters. This leaves them shriveled up and only their clothes and skin are left.

Violence - A woman gets bit by snakes. A story is told about someone murdering two other people.

Other - There is a huge needle and syringe that is stuck in a man’s neck. A woman dumps tries to take some pills but a man throws them away, but then gets them back out. The pills are mentioned again later in the movie.

Overall:

Did Beetlejuice need a sequel? No, and as we have seen some 80s movies that get new-aged sequels turn out to be as horrifying as Beetlejuice’s breath. However, this one does a lot of things right, even if it isn’t perfect.

• It connects well to the first movie and explains why certain characters do not make a return. I would have liked a bit more about Adam and Barbara, but they do mention them and they get some nice references.

• It is just as weird, gross, and doesn’t care about your feelings as the first one.

• It is Tim Burton and Danny Elfman doing their things.

• It gives just enough nostalgia to not be a bloated “remember this” corpse.

• And it paves the road with some new ideas.

• All of the build up of characters and plots in the movie seem a bit anticlimactic at the end.

I had a good time watching it. It isn’t the first one, but I will say I enjoyed it as much as the first one (maybe a little more). If you don’t like dark humor with a mix of Tim Burton’s weird and gross mind on display this isn’t the movie for you. I do wish there was less cursing and sexual scene was left out.

Just so you don’t sit all the way through the credits there is no mid-credits or end-credits scene. There are fun clips showing the actors names with their characters, but that is it.