If you say the title word in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice one more time, you will supposedly summon the demon Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).  Be you a practicing Catholic like me, or anyone else, one should not want to utter this because who wants to have such evil on their hands?  As I have grown in my Faith, the way the self-styled “ghost with the most” from the 1988 hit Beetlejuice has remained popular has troubled me.  It is also a little strange when you consider that he clocks in barely twenty minutes of screen time in the original.  Also, have you ever wondered why the name of the character is not the same as the title?  Movie logic will tell you that it is a play on scenes contained within, with the eponymous ghoul helping his victims unwittingly pronounce his name.  Again, what concerns me more is the arguably cult-hero status of such a being.  Then there is this far too late sequel, which is trying to produce the same effect.  By the way, the door is open at the end for another entry in the franchise, which I am guessing would complete what this agent of chaos and darkness would like us children of God to do.  Having said all this, there are a few snippets throughout that hold out a glimmer of hope.  Otherwise, it is a disconcerting cinematic experience that you will understand as I go along.

It has been a few decades since Beetlejuice Beetlejuice haunted Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder).  Since then, she has become a medium with a television show in which she helps others deal with spirits disturbing their lives.  The show is produced by her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), who is more interested in living off her fame but puts on a credible façade of caring.  This includes trying to keep her off of pills, though letting her slip up every once in a while.  She takes them because of the visions to which she is regularly subjected.  On this day she feels an extra need for them because Betelgeuse briefly appeared during a taping.  Speaking of the so-called “bio-exorcist,” he has problems of his own since his literal soul-sucking ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), has been inadvertently freed in the afterlife.  Her quest for revenge on her ex-husband alerts what passes for a police force in the beyond, led by deceased actor Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe).  They find Betelgeuse to warn him, but he denies any knowledge of the women that ended his mortal life, with him doing the same to her.  As this unfolds below, above Lydia learns that her father, Charles Deetz, has been killed by a shark after his plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean.  She is told this by her stepmother, Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), who encourages Lydia to reach out to her own daughter.  This is Astrid Deetz (Jenna Ortega), and she is not pleased with her mom.  Since Astrid’s father, Richard (Santiago Cabrera), had died in the Amazon rain forest while trying to protect the environment, she has drifted from Lydia while mom pursued her career.  Now, Astrid, Delia, Lydia, and Rory travel back to Winter River where the iconic house still stands on its hill.  Adding to Astrid’s annoyance is Rory’s pandering.  He chooses the wake to propose to Lydia.  Reaching her limit, Astrid jumps on a bike and rides into town.  During her trek she has some near misses with traffic, sending her careening into a fence and crashing into a tree.  Sitting in a house in the branches is Jeremy (Arthur Conti).  Once she picks herself up and they have conversed, it turns out they have a lot in common.  He offers for her to come to his place for Halloween in two days, which will be a way to avoid mom’s wedding on the same date.  This cheers her up a bit and she is even able to talk to Lydia a little, doing so in the attic of their house.  It is here that Astrid finds a flyer from Betelgeuse encouraging her to say his name three times.  She is already skeptical of her mother’s abilities, and her vehement demand that Astrid never repeat that word does nothing to improve her opinion.  Still, Lydia drops Astrid off for date before returning home to meet with Jane Butterfield (Amy Nuttall), the realtor who will be selling the house.  During their conversation, Lydia tells Jane where Astrid has gone.  This cannot be right according to Jane because the address is empty, the result of the parents being murdered by their son, Jeremy, who had also died by falling out of the tree in the backyard.  Lydia returns too late, watching Astrid being lured into the underworld with Jeremy promising to see her father.  The person Lydia turns to is Betelgeuse, promising once more to marry him in exchange for his help.  He agrees, partially because he has obsessed over her for the past few decades, but also (I guess) to get away from Delores.  As they all Scooby Doo it up in the afterlife as only the random mind of director Tim Burton can imagine, Delia is killed by poisonous snakes she thought to be defanged, using the serpents as part of an artistic ceremony to honor her deceased husband.  As for Astrid and Lydia, they are able to prevent Jeremy from stealing Astrid’s soul and returning to the land of the living, doing so with a little extra assistance from Richard.  Richard also shows them the way back to Winter River.  They emerge in the town cemetery, which happens to be near the church where Lydia’s wedding is to happen.  Ready to greet them is Rory, but his preparations are usurped by Betelgeuse, who has come to enforce Lydia’s promise.  There proceeds a truly a bizarre dance number that only serves to give Delores enough time to make it to their location, much to Betelgeuse’s, er, horror.  This breaks the spell, and Astrid summons sandworms that end up taking out Delores and Rory.  As for Betelgeuse, Lydia finally frees herself and returns the demon to where he belongs by saying his name three times.  The final scenes involve Lydia having dreams about her daughter that are marred by Betelgeuse, setting up, as I said in the introduction, a possible third sequel.

If you are a fan of the source material and by this point are wondering what happened to the characters from the first film, know that there are some changes in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.  First, the married couple who were the previous stars, Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis), are not in this one.  They are said to have “moved on,” which is sort of Christian, I suppose.  You know, if you squint.  This is handled by the somewhat cleverly titled “Soul Train,” complete with dancers, with one of its destinations being the “Pearly Gates.”  As I said, you have to squint to see it in the subway station of the underworld, but it is there on the wall.  This is a common way of referring to Heaven, even if the word is not specifically mentioned.  I am also unsure as to whether the movie wants any intentional Christian themes.  For example, there is a priest, Father Damien (Burn Gorman), who presides over the funeral.  He is also set to celebrate the wedding, but that obviously goes awry.  Finally, he has a phrase that caught this Catholic’s attention, saying that the Church always welcomes wayward souls.  This is accurate.  It is also diminished when he tries to offer God’s comfort to Delia, and she looks at him like he is crazy.  Another missing character is Charles Deetz.  In the first, he is played by Jeffrey Jones, but he is in legal trouble.  Thus, Charles is presented as having lost everything from mid-torso up, obviating the need to show his face.  Such alterations are sometimes necessary, though with Davis and Baldwin, I am guessing, it was more an issue of them being too old to resume roles for which they needed to look the same as they did in 1988.  All of this is usually a recipe for disaster for such a sequel because people want to see them because of the characters with whom they are familiar.  I surmise this one has enough of the important people, but it is still odd, even by Burton’s standards.  It may be that this is just me as the film has gotten positive reviews, but it all seems to be the result of random choices on the director’s part.

What I am less sure is random is the demonic nature of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.  I have already discussed the problems with such material.  In this first movie, Betelgeuse is the clear antagonist.  The story is more about the Maitlands learning to cope with death, which is a great Catholic theme, even if nothing of what you see matches with any conception of what Faith says happens to you after you die.  Actually, there are no specific teachings on the matter.  We do know that souls separated from God will spend eternity in hell, whereas the reward for the faithful soul is forever with God.  As such, everything you see in these films is a bunch of made-up crap.  I should be more charitable.  In the most recent episode of the “The Catechism in a Year” podcast with Father Mike Schmitz to which I listened, it talks of how our soul’s ultimate destination is the result of the consequences of the choices we make in this life.  When it comes to hell, Father Mike emphasizes the word “consequence” because it brings into focus the fact that it is tied to what we do rather than God making known His wrath.  Finally, like Father Damien says, the Church welcomes back everyone.  The danger with the movie is that it confuses further what little knowledge there is about our eternal fates.  In modern culture’s mad dash to offer every possible alternative to traditional structures it blames for society’s problems, like Catholicism, we come to essentially believe nothing.  Another way of putting this idea is if we think everything is true, then nothing is true.  The Faith is true.  There have been some who have misused it, but its teachings are pure and life giving.  It is enough, and where It does not give you the answers you feel you need, God’s grace will more than make up for anything you lack.  You do not need to idolize demons, comedic or otherwise.

I am probably sounding more critical of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice than I should be.  Once it finds its direction, it moves along at a fair pace.  It takes a while to get to it, however.  There are also some horrific images, particularly showing demon babies, that should never be seen by any audience.  Please pray for my nieces, who are probably going to see this awfulness.  In the meantime, I would pick some other piece of cinema.