Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
2024 · Directed by Tim Burton
Original language: English
- comedy
- fantasy
The story
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Betelgeuse, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
What it’s like
Saturated, theatrical colour against deep shadow: purple and acid-green gel lighting, a Halloween-season New England town of grey clapboard and mossy stone, and a Victorian house whose rooms shift between warm amber lamplight and sickly fluorescent glare. Tim Burton's camera favours wide, symmetrical set-ups and sudden tilted angles, with stop-motion-flavoured practical sets, bulging miniatures and makeup that look handmade rather than rendered. The score is a bouncy, macabre swing of organ and brass, punctuated by sudden silences for comic beats. Its vibe is gleeful gothic chaos with a melancholy undertow about grief, its pacing brisk and sketch-like, with scenes cutting quickly between farce and eerie stillness. Intensity is mild: ghostly grotesquerie, slapstick body horror, a few jump scares and some crude jokes, but no real gore or sustained dread. It suits a Halloween-season rewatch, a rainy night in with friends, or a playful watch for anyone who enjoys macabre humour, a grieving family finding their feet, and sets that feel like a pop-up haunted attraction.
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