8/10.

Director: Tim Burton, 2024.

Set three decades after the original, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reunites most of the original cast as Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) confronts her erstwhile nemesis, the trickster spirit, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). All whilst juggling a pushy fiancé (Justin Theroux) and an estranged daughter (Jenny Ortega) who has newly discovered that she has inherited her mother’s gift of seeing the dead.

Image Credit: Warner Bros, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

This is a fun goth romp, which always has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. 

The sets benefit from the original’s practical effects in replacement of CGI, and the Danny Elfman score is, once again, sublime. 

Purists will decry that the blend of multiple storylines becomes slightly muddled and that donning characters in a black dress or using halloween props, in and of itself, does not make the movie gothic, as is commonplace in Tim Burton’s work.

Image Credit: Warner Bros, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

All these remarks are fair but ultimately do not detract from the experience of watching it.

Perhaps one note of warning: this is rated 12A, and i’d say it is a strong 12A pushing 15. 

I saw this with my two kids – the 13-year-old loved it and laughed most of the way through, in stark contrast to my 10-year-old who was utterly terrified from the opening scenes of quite severe self-mutilation through to the final credits.

Parents, you have been warned.

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, 2024.