Horribly Disappointing

A Review of “BeetleJuice BeetleJuice”

Stay away from this gruesome, unfunny sequel to the original movie. I still can’t believe this is one of the top ten grossing films of 2024, though I can tell you it is one of the top GROSS films of 2024. In the original movie, except for the main character, all of the characters were sympathetic including the recently deceased Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), trying in vain to haunt the new family out of their house. The new family consisted of nerdy Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones), his ditzy artist second wife Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and Charles’ daughter, goth teenager Lydia (Winona Ryder). The antics are silly, and Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) and the other “Afterlife” monsters are more goofy than scary. But in this movie, the gore is constant, disgusting, and in some cases disturbing.

The sequel starts with a particularly disgusting cameo by Danny Devito playing a standard disgusting Danny Devito character that we’ve seen over and over again. Jeffrey Jones is absent, probably due to his criminal record, so he’s replaced by a Claymation version (no kidding) and later a walking headless torso. The Claymation version looked right out of the old Davey & Goliath TV show, which left me scratching my head.

Years ago, I went to a comedy-writing seminar by actor/director Harold Ramis who played Egon Spengler in the first two (and best) Ghostbusters movies, but more importantly wrote and directed one of the best films of all time, Groundhog Day. He said something that stuck with me: Comedy is a crazy character in a sane world or a sane character in a crazy world; it’s the contrast that makes it funny.

Obviously director Tim Burton and his writers didn’t get that memo, because everyone in this movie is over the top, with the exception of Lydia’s daughter Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega. She is so wooden as to be unappealing, which works fine in her TV series Wednesday about Addams Family member Wednesday Addams who has no emotions. That’s the ongoing joke in that TV show, but here it makes for just another unlikeable character.

Which brings me to the second rule I know about movies. There needs to be one likeable character, especially in a gruesome supernatural movie, that the audience can cheer for. Here, all of the characters are annoying at best or disgusting and creepy at worst.

Plus the story makes little sense, with characters jumping into and out of the Afterlife and threatening to marry each other. The sequel has two musical numbers. It takes “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” from the first movie and turns it into a funeral dirge. It then uses “MacArthur Park” for a wedding dance sequence, but unlike the silliness of the first movie, this sequence is just full of gore and special effects, and long before that time I just wanted the movie to end.

I guess people are so nostalgic for a good movie that they’re going to see this sequel to recapture the fun. Don’t do that. This movie is so bad that it ruined my memories of the original that I had enjoyed so much.

About the author

Bob Zeidman is the creator of the field of software forensics and the founder of several successful high-tech Silicon Valley firms including Zeidman Consulting and Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering. His latest venture is Good Beat Poker, a new way to play and watch poker online. He is the author of textbooks on engineering and intellectual property as well as award-winning screenplays and novels. His latest book is Election Hacks, the true story of how he challenged his own beliefs about voting machine hacking in the 2020 presidential election and made international news and (possibly) $5 million.