The Ending Of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2, Defined

This text incorporates huge spoilers for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

1988’s “Beetlejuice” is a singular work of cinema, a gonzo alt-comedy supernatural satire that takes a have a look at loss of life, the afterlife, and the ghost film in a method that is fully distinctive unto itself. It is a kind of movies that incorporates a ton of creativeness and a few distinctive world-building, so it is no shock that there is been a want to discover that world additional through the 36 years for the reason that film’s launch. But, regardless of a profitable kids’s animated collection and successful Broadway musical, “Beetlejuice” shouldn’t be a franchise that is been bled dry.

Thus, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the long-awaited follow-up from unique director Tim Burton, is rather more of a private sequel versus a franchise-building installment or perhaps a too-reverential legacy sequel. This isn’t a movie supposed to reboot an IP a lot because it’s an artist revisiting his outdated stomping grounds. Burton himself has stated as a lot, for at a press occasion attended by /Movie’s Jacob Corridor, he was quoted as saying, “We simply wished to form of not take into consideration sequel or something, simply go and simply make the film.” That is an power that Burton has delivered to the world of franchises earlier than. Whereas the filmmaker has been concerned with a couple of handfuls of remakes and reimaginings of established tales, his solely direct sequel earlier than this one was 1992’s “Batman Returns,” which took an analogous tack of crusing its personal course.

Regardless of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” having its personal distinct humorousness and identification, it nonetheless carries ahead one key side of the unique movie. It makes use of its story, characters, and wit to make social commentary, and the primary theme of this sequel issues exploitation: of individuals, of artists, of life … and, after all, of the afterlife.

After Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) was left to be raised by her stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), her father, Charles (Jeffrey Jones), and the picture-perfect ghost couple, Adam and Barbara Maitland (Adam Baldwin & Geena Davis), she has since grown as much as develop into a psychic medium with a profitable ghost looking and paranormal investigation collection entitled “Ghost Home.” All shouldn’t be completely properly with Lydia, nevertheless: her supernatural means appears to be extra selective than voluntary, main her to take medicine to suppress her visions of wayward spirits when it will get an excessive amount of for her, one thing her producer and boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux), is not so eager on, on condition that it is unhealthy for enterprise. Lydia is named to New York Metropolis by Delia, who’s develop into a profitable efficiency artist within the metropolis. Delia has simply obtained information about her husband Charles’ premature demise; it appears the person was on a birdwatching journey when his aircraft crashed within the ocean, a catastrophe he survived till he was eaten by a shark.

Lydia, Delia, and Rory hatch a plan to carry Charles’ stays to Winter River, Connecticut, the place the Deetz household house (previously the Maitland house) resides. Alongside the best way, they choose up Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) at her boarding college. Astrid continues to be miffed at her mom over a couple of issues, chief amongst them the premature demise of her father, Richard (Santiago Cabrera), an activist and horror film fan who was misplaced throughout a trek by the Amazon. Lydia apparently can not see Richard’s spirit, although she makes a residing off of seeing ghosts for revenue. Astrid can also be getting a free experience at her college because of her step-grandmother Delia donating cash to its arts program (and securing the outstanding show of Delia’s weird sculptures outdoors the college in addition). 

In response to her mom’s household’s lengthy historical past of exploiting others for revenue — let’s not overlook Charles’ plan within the first movie to purchase the whole city of Winter River to develop a supernatural vacationer attraction — Astrid has develop into an activist herself, becoming a member of teams that search to cease local weather change and so forth. Sadly for her, Delia and Lydia inform Astrid that she has no alternative however to go along with them to her grandpa’s funeral. Simply as she can not escape this destiny, Lydia is feeling the stress of her personal previous actually haunting her, as she’s starting to see frequent glimpses of the demon Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) stalking her.

In the meantime, in The Afterlife, Beetlejuice has taken it upon himself to open up a name middle (stuffed with staff who’ve had their heads shrunken) devoted to getting gigs for himself as a bio-exorcist (that’s, a demon who dispels the residing). His callers appear to be subverting or poaching reputable points the lately deceased have, that means that ol’ Beetle Breakfast continues to be as much as his opportunistic methods. Nevertheless, whilst he intentionally haunts Lydia (whom he is nonetheless satisfied is the love of his life-cum-get out of the afterlife inexperienced card), he is haunted by a specter from his personal previous: his ex-wife, Dolores (Monica Bellucci). 

Again when Beetlejuice was alive, he met the bewitching Dolores through the days of the Black Plague whereas robbing mass graves. The 2 rapidly fell in love, married, and shared a passionate marriage ceremony evening collectively till Beetlejuice discovered too late that he’d been fatally poisoned by her as a part of her belonging to a sacrificial loss of life cult of soul-suckers. Simply earlier than the poison took maintain, Beetlejuice hacked up Dolores with an axe, main her to finish up in The Afterlife in a number of items put into a number of bins.

Due to a mishap involving a Janitor (Danny DeVito), Dolores is revived, actually pulling herself again collectively and again to her outdated soul-sucking methods. What’s extra, she seems to be on the hunt for revenge in opposition to Beetlejuice, one thing that is delivered to the Ghost With the Most’s consideration by a member of Afterlife legislation enforcement: Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe). Wolf, an ex-B-movie actor, could or might not be an precise public servant of The Afterlife; as established within the first “Beetlejuice,” these positions are usually crammed by individuals who’ve died by suicide, and it appears Wolf died by chance throughout a stunt sequence mishap with a dwell grenade. At the very least, he appears to be considerably satisfied that he is an precise cop, warning Beetlejuice that Dolores is on the hunt as she begins leaving a path of soul-sucked corpses behind her. Beetlejuice’s response is to decorate up considered one of his staff, Bob (Nick Kellington), as a decoy of himself, focusing as an alternative on the best way to get again to the actual world.

Again in Winter River, no sooner is Charles laid to relaxation (with a headstone within the form of a shark’s fin, naturally) earlier than Rory seizes his alternative to tie the knot with Lydia, awkwardly proposing to her in the course of the funeral in entrance of dozens of company. Rory emotionally manipulates Lydia into tacitly agreeing to marry him, asserting instantly afterward that they will be married by the native pastor who carried out the funeral providers, Father Damien (Burn Gorman) on Halloween evening … two days away.

Seeing Astrid develop into more and more aggravated and distant, Lydia reaches out, trying to reconnect along with her daughter. She makes some headway when Astrid finds a few of her father’s outdated stuff in a field within the attic, together with the Maitland’s outdated mannequin of the whole city (and, simply to tie a bow on their story, Lydia explains how the Maitland’s “discovered a loophole” of their sentence of remaining on Earth for 125 years and have been capable of transfer on). Nevertheless, Lydia is disturbed to find a flyer for Beetlejuice mendacity round, indicating that he is nonetheless acquired energy over the Maitland’s mannequin city. Whereas trying to clarify Beetlejuice to Astrid, the lady, who refuses to consider within the supernatural, runs away. Astrid quickly finds herself actually crashing into the yard of a boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who, like Astrid, is a fan of classic music and Dostoyevsky. The 2 make a plan to see one another earlier than Lydia’s marriage ceremony on Halloween evening.

Again on the Deetz house, Lydia finds herself unable to clarify Beetlejuice to a disbelieving Rory, who sadly chants the demon’s identify thrice, sending them into the mannequin and into Beetlejuice’s clutches. Beetlejuice performs the a part of a pair’s counselor for the pair, scaring Rory speechless and starting his pursuit of Lydia anew. His illusions embody making Lydia spontaneously start a bit of Child Beetlejuice, and because the monstrous child begins to gnaw on her leg, Lydia chants “House! House! House!” and frees herself and Rory from the demon … for now.

The Deetz’s are usually not out of hazard but. Lydia drops Astrid off at her date with Jeremy earlier than heading again to deal with the matter of getting ready to place the Maitland home again in the marketplace with legacy actual property agent Jane Butterfield (Amy Nuttall). When Lydia mentions the place she dropped off Astrid, Jane lets it slip that the home was as soon as owned by a household who was murdered by their very own son, Jeremy, earlier than he was by chance killed throughout his apprehension by the cops 23 years in the past. Placing two and two collectively, Lydia races to warn her daughter, however it’s too late. Jeremy has already put the strikes on Astrid, wooing her together with his delicate boy appeal and explaining how she might chant a spell from the Handbook for the Not too long ago Deceased to be able to cross over to the Afterlife to see her father.

Astrid does so, however little does she notice that Jeremy is definitely getting her to enact a transaction whereby she’ll willingly surrender her mortal life to permit him to totally return to the actual world. Discovering that this transaction requires a couple of bureaucratic steps to be full, Lydia calls on Beetlejuice for assist, and he agrees on one situation: that Lydia signal a contract (in blood, naturally) to marry him after he helps save Astrid. Lydia agrees, and she or he and Beetlejuice scour The Afterlife earlier than Astrid could be placed on the Soul Prepare to the Nice Past.

In fact, all of those shenanigans imply that issues are starting to go off the rails in each Winter River and the Afterlife. The bomb that Beetlejuice attracts to let him and Lydia within the again strategy to The Afterlife signifies that his employees of Shrinkers escape into the actual world — aside from Bob. Whereas the opposite Shrinkers trigger some mayhem within the small Connecticut city, poor Bob is picked up by Wolf and interrogated, solely to be discovered by Dolores proper after. Wolf dispatches some elite troops all through The Afterlife after Beetlejuice and Lydia, who’s deemed an unlawful trespasser.

Luckily, Lydia finds Astrid simply as she’s about to be taken on the Soul Prepare. With Beetlejuice’s assist, Jeremy is denied the switch he was in search of and is shipped into a really Hell-like dimension for his sins. Much more luckily, Richard finds his spouse and daughter, saving them from a misstep they take throughout their flight from Afterlife authorities onto the sandworm-infested Saturn realm. He explains to Lydia and Astrid that he was at all times watching over them in the actual world ever since his deadly accident, however did not make himself seen to them in order to not upset them and allow them to transfer on.

As Richard helps Lydia and Astrid make their method again to Winter River, Delia movies her personal performative artwork piece of her “mourning” over Charles’ grave, which for some motive includes two toxic snakes that she was assured had been defanged. Seems she was ripped off, and after the snakes ship their deadly chunk, she finds herself in The Afterlife’s ready room, aggravated at being made to attend. Insisting on being helped instantly, she calls Beetlejuice, who informs her that he’ll carry her again to the actual world with him … and that he is about to marry Lydia.

Lydia and Astrid emerge into the actual world close to the church the place Rory, Father Damien, and an viewers filled with influencers that Rory invited are ready for the marriage to begin. Earlier than Lydia can undergo with it, Beetlejuice seems, giving Rory a reality serum which makes him reveal that his whole relationship with Lydia was exploitative: he solely wished to make use of her and prey on her insecurities for his personal fame and clout. After Lydia offers Rory a Beetlejuice-assisted punch, the demon then insists on gathering his debt from Lydia. Apparently, a part of Beetlejuice’s deal includes getting all of the influencers sucked into their very own smartphones after which having himself and the Deetzs lip sync to Richard Harris’ model of “MacArthur Park.” Throughout this efficiency, Wolf, his Afterlife troops, and Dolores present up, all of whom crash the marriage.

As Beetlejuice distracts Dolores by apologizing and positioning Rory because the real love of her life, Astrid makes use of the Handbook to determine the best way to summon a sandworm, which assaults and swallows each Rory and Dolores. A gloating Beetlejuice prepares to marry Lydia when Astrid explains that she’s seen Beetlejuice’s contract has made a violation as per the Handbook, that means that the contract has truly develop into null and void. The contract vanishes into flames, and Beetlejuice blows up and pops like an enormous balloon as Lydia says his identify thrice, banishing him for good. Wolf explains that Delia, who’s now useless, should come again with him, however she’s solely blissful to as soon as she discovers the headless (however nonetheless energetic) corpse of her beloved Charles on the Soul Prepare.

With all of the characters lastly reconciling with one another and themselves (or, for many who haven’t realized the error of their exploitative methods, banished or defeated), the aftermath of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” sees Lydia wind down her “Ghost Home” program, bidding her viewers farewell to spend extra time along with her daughter. As such, we see Lydia and Astrid enterprise off to Dracula’s fortress in Romania, a visit that Richard and Astrid at all times wished to take that mom and daughter at the moment are embarking on. Whereas there, Astrid catches the attention of one other cute man, Vlad (Filipe Cates), and in a time minimize, we see Astrid and Vlad married as a proud Lydia seems on. An additional time minimize reveals Lydia beaming as Astrid is in a maternity ward, giving start to a child, and plainly Lydia has made good on her promise to be so carefully concerned in her daughter’s life.

Nevertheless, one thing is clearly amiss. This montage of years going by has been scored to Pino Donaggio’s theme from Brian De Palma’s “Carrie,” which famously concluded with a nightmarish dream sequence indicating that the mad, telekinetic Carrie White was not fairly useless. Certain sufficient, the infant that Astrid offers start to is a Child Beetlejuice, who scampers over the room and ceiling. Simply earlier than he assaults, Lydia awakes from her nightmare with a fright … however Beetlejuice is in mattress subsequent to her. “I simply had the weirdest dream,” he says nonchalantly. Lydia wakes up once more, her nightmare inside a nightmare seemingly over as she finds herself in mattress alone.

This ending not solely pays homage to “Carrie” and several other different traditional horror movies however strongly hints that Beetlejuice is probably not as banished as Lydia and Astrid had hoped. One large, ominous trace is the movie’s title itself, that includes two makes use of of the identify “Beetlejuice.” Might a 3rd occasion of the identify — i.e. a 3rd movie — be shut behind? Is Burton promising or threatening a second sequel (or, in a cheeky, meta-satiric method, each)? Possibly the title is simply hinting that Beetlejuice is at all times lurking on the market, able to pester the residing. Regardless of the case could also be, it is protected to say we have not seen the final of “Beetlejuice.”