Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice launched the blueprint for cinematic meta brokers of chaos into popular culture lengthy earlier than Disney’s Genie from Aladdin or the MCU’s Deadpool and Loki. With out a lot of a mythology, save for some comparisons to trickster entities of folklore and basic lit like Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night time’s Dream, Betelgeuse—as his identify is spelled within the movie’s flashy neon signal—may be something not beholden to a historical past.
Michael Keaton’s original summoning of the character launched Beetlejuice as an unreliable narrator, which is adopted in each variant of him we’ve seen in tv and on stage; he has powers we don’t fairly perceive and nobody can management exterior of claiming his identify thrice earlier than he can cease them. Keaton’s model of the character will seen once more on this September’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice—and although there’s at all times some trepidation awaiting a long-in-the-making sequel, right here’s why we’re too not apprehensive about what to anticipate from this one.
Within the 1988 darkish comedy about life as ghosts for the lately departed, Keaton shone because the larger-than-life poltergeist in a efficiency that helped make Burton’s wacky creation iconic. With stand-up gags and stop-motion buffoonery (a few of which could not be so PC these days), the villain of his personal film virtually stole the present from Winona Ryder’s teen goth dream Lydia and her ghostly discovered household after almost eliminating her residing household (who might have deserved it). The movie grossed $74,664,632 in North America, garnering its success in theaters and being embraced as a success household movie about dying. It additionally primed Keaton to reunite with Burton for Batman.
Beetlejuice’s soar within the line from the movies into changing into a cultural staple was propelled by Beetlejuice, the animated sequence. The cartoon had a extra family-friendly, looser interpretation of the plot launched within the movie. It removed the Maitlands and the questionable child-bride thread, and as an alternative made Beetlejuice a lovable manic sidekick Lydia rehabilitates into extra of an anti-hero. Their spooky cartoon adventures ran from 1989 to 1991 and it turned a preferred movie-to-show experiment, solidifying Beetlejuice’s place as a spooky pop-culture star.
His inclusion in the true world by his presence at Common Studios theme parks continued to maintain the Ghost with the Most within the zeitgeist by the ‘90s. Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue was my first introduction to the character earlier than watching the movie, which got here out earlier than I used to be born. The dwell theme park stage present was a monster mash of pop-rock music covers carried out by the Common Monsters and hosted by Beetlejuice; it debuted within the ‘90s however had up to date iterations all through the years. It was a genius transfer by Common, crafting a formative theme park-experience that made such an influence on monster children, goths, and normies—reframing Beetlejuice because the crypt keeper for a brand new technology however for foolish spooky nonsense.
As a result of… why is he internet hosting a graveyard jukebox musical? What does it should do with the film? Why are the Common Monsters there? Wait—no, they make sense, why is he (a Warner Bros. property) there? By the point he jumped out of the grave none of these questions mattered; he was again and badder than ever. Beetlejuice has been a Common Studios character meet and greet staple ever since—even previous the closing of his revue again in 2015. Most lately in 2021, Beetlejuice bought a Halloween Horror Nights home at Common Studios Orlando; it proved to be one of many annual occasion’s hottest points of interest and confirmed that followers had been nonetheless clamoring for extra, even earlier than Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was greenlit.
Nonetheless one other iteration of Beetlejuice got here to life shortly earlier than the pandemic. In 2019 a Broadway musical adaptation of the property hit the stage for a stint earlier than returning in 2021 and heading out on a nationwide tour. The present, starring Alex Brightman (who lately was featured as Richard Dreyfuss within the Jaws behind-the-scenes play The Shark is Damaged), might seem at first to be merely a musical model of the movie—nonetheless, when you’ve seen it, you realize it’s rather more than that. The ebook for the musical, written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, departs vastly from the movie with a extra cohesive storyline, centering Lydia’s journey by the grief of shedding her mom (whereas her dad rapidly remarries Delia), and the Maitlands’ grief at not with the ability to dwell lengthy sufficient to have a household. Each give the story extra to discover at depth—all whereas retaining the funhouse comedy romp that comes from coping with dying by way of Beetlejuice’s comedic chaos counseling. By the point the second act hits, it seems like such a very totally different story from the film in a great way, and if it occurs to cease in your city on tour, don’t miss it.
Every variant of the Beetlejuice story right down to its core is in regards to the character’s freedom to suit into any medium with meta commentary about dying—maybe as a result of since he’s useless, he exists exterior actuality. His presence is sensible of the unexplainable not by giving solutions however by exploring the questions individuals have about life and dying by a film, cartoon, haunted home, and musical. Beetlejuice’s modus operandi is to not totally change others, however to be modified by the conditions he’s in—all whereas being his finest hedonistic self and at most encouraging the residing to dwell a bit of by the horrors of humanity. It’s why he and Lydia have turn out to be goth legends for the Sizzling Matter and Spirit Halloween crowds. Beetlejuice isn’t high-brow “cinema,” it’s a couple of man who’s the executioner of gallows humor. And that’s the reason we shouldn’t be too apprehensive about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: it’s not a legacy sequel that has a bar to achieve, and I truthfully suppose it’d make enjoyable of that idea in one of the simplest ways. I’m simply hoping for an additional good time, a brand new motive to snigger and never be afraid of dying whereas seeing that Beetlejuice fella be as much as no good once more earlier than getting exorcised again to his resting place… we all know it’s not remaining.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens September 6.
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