Reviews
[REVIEW] ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Is An Enjoyable But Scatterbrained Revival
30-some odd years after sending the world’s best bio-exorcist packing, Lydia Deetz struggles to maintain a relationship with her daughter Astrid, juggling a lucrative career as a paranormal investigator/television host with a strained family life. But as a death in the family brings her back to Winter River where it all began, trouble in the afterlife sends her old enemy Beetlejuice racing to reunite with Lydia to save his skin—or rather, his soul.
Given that the past decade of his oeuvre hasn’t been as memorable as his work in yesteryear, it’s sometimes easy to forget how Tim Burton remains a household name in film. In a recent roundtable interview with press outlets, Burton even discussed his brief step away from the medium following his displeasure within the industry. He’s felt constrained by it, like many artists have, even the fame and track record can’t insulate you from studio interference it seems. He claims in that interview that what he made with his subsequent Netflix show Wednesday allowed for a “re-cleanse” and a “re-energize” in his art that’s manifested in his newest movie, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
A High-Speed Return in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
So now with the Autumn spirit in the air and Burton back on the screen, we can see he’s certainly told the truth, at least re-energized with his latest high-speed venture Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Though where and how he directs that energy suggests some trouble with reeling in the Halloween-soaked crazy train he’s constructed.
30-some odd years after sending the world’s best bio-exorcist packing, Lydia Deetz struggles to maintain a relationship with her daughter Astrid, juggling a lucrative career as a paranormal investigator/television host with a strained family life. But as a death in the family brings her back to Winter River where it all began, trouble in the afterlife sends her old enemy Beetlejuice racing to reunite with Lydia to save his skin—or rather, his soul.
Burton Prioritizes Comedy, Chaos, and Visual Spectacle
Many people will be concerned with how “faithful” or how “good of a sequel” the film is, but Burton wants to riff, no matter how scatterbrained it can turn in the jam sesh. He wants to make something silly and ambitious and cram in all the Beetlejuice ideas and visuals he’s been drafting up throughout the years (even new ones that were thought up on set and on the fly, according to him). It’s fun, fast, and flawed, something I maybe should have predicted given the duo writing the script; you don’t bring in heavyweight hitmakers like Gough and Millar unless you want writers who are crowd-pleasers above all else. People who have the skill to accommodate Burton’s desire to make everything he wants to happen happen. Forget living up to legacy or playing the nostalgia violin; we’re here for the gags and cartoonish visuals. We’re here for the random stop-motion segments and to see ghosts drink drain cleaner for fun. We’re here for the Burton aesthetic.
This time, the cast is certainly funnier to match that ambition, though less compelling than the trio of Ryder, Baldwin, and Davis were in the original. They gave that movie a lot of heart and warmth that is still a delight to watch today, especially juxtaposed against the crude Beetlejuice who spent his share of the runtime spitting in the face of love and general goodness (what a sleazeball, we love that for him). Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega recapture some of that in their troubled mother-daughter bond, which plays well. Still, everyone in the film is having too much fun with the material to be concerned with emotionally hooking you to the drama of the plot.
Keaton, O’Hara, and the Supporting Cast Steal the Show
Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara are the best examples of this since they slip back into their respective roles like a glove and deliver most of the movie’s funniest jokes; solid gold bars of Burton’s comedy are alchemized when either is on screen. Supporting cast like Justin Theroux, but especially Willem Dafoe as “afterlife detective” Wolf Jackson, are a delightful addition that fills out a chorus of irreverent comedic voices that will pull a lot of laughs out of opening weekend audiences.
The whole film, in general, is a showcase of silly horror comedy, replete with some much nastier effects than in the previous film; you get projectile exploding guts, exposed brains, severed limb reassembly montages, and a plethora of walking grotesque sight-gags that push the envelope compared to the original’s afterlife inhabitants. The film’s effects rival those that won the first Beetlejuice accolades at the Oscars, and there are plenty of genuinely amazing practicals here that it would be criminal not to include a “VFX Breakdown” or “Making Of” segment on the home release.
Does Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Work Without Seeing the Original?
I should mention though, that if you haven’t seen the original Beetlejuice (like fellow Horror Press resident Brennan who only recently tapped into the Burton phenomenon), there are some caveats on how fun it can be. I imagine a lot of the sequel’s charm will be retained for how funny it can get, but it won’t have as much currency in goodwill or nostalgia to buy off its structural problems. The pacing is rushed, most evident by its final act, which leaves no breathing room as it tries to tie up all the loose ends.
The film has a few different plotlines, but instead of feeling weaved together, they end up tangling. Independently, each one is pretty fun: Astrid trying to find love; Lydia herself coping with her weird huckster boyfriend while being haunted; Delia trying to create gauche and goofy art out of her grief; and Beetlejuice trying to dodge a vengeful ex-wife. However, the amount of time allotted to each one causes the movie to jump around and harms the film’s pacing, especially when it rapidly dispatches some of the conflicts and chops up the plots.
A Climax That Rushes to the Finish Line
The film’s ending feels hurried down the aisle as much as Lydia was during the first film, with a sequence that tows the line between rehashing and reimagining a legendary film scene that you knew they had to reference. It’s a symptom of Burton’s need to make a movie with no strings on him; he will include everything he wants to see, and he will sacrifice that hour and 40-some minute runtime’s balance to do it.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is at points sloppy and overuses some of its many needle drops to play on-the-nose music as a gag one too many times. But it hits its mark in too many areas for me not to find it enjoyable. It doesn’t drag, and even has a decent rewatch factor. It’s a fine way to inaugurate the Fall season for horror, and is sure to be a staple Halloween film, flaws and all going forward.
There are countless subgenres within subgenres for horror, and one that feels underutilized is workplace horror. Unless you’re one of the lucky few, most people wake up at some point during the day, go to work, and then come home. It’s one of the few things in life that’s nearly unavoidable. While there are countless real-life examples of workplace violence, seeing exaggerated forms of it in film can still be fun. When I pitched covering The Belko Experiment for this month, I actually thought I was pitching Joe Lynch’s Mayhem. I soon found out how incorrect I had been, but figured I’d go along with it anyway.
Mike Milch (John Gallagher Jr.) and 79 of his coworkers are locked inside the towering building they come to work in every day in Bogotá, Colombia. They’re given simple instructions: murder two coworkers within the next half hour. When they fail that task, coworkers’ heads start blowing up left and right. When they’re given the next task, kill 30 people in two hours, they take it…a little more seriously.
The Belko Experiment’s Brutal Premise Sets Up High Stakes
Written by James Gunn and directed by Wolf Creek creator Greg McLean, The Belko Experiment is a painfully by-the-numbers film that offers little more than a handful of entertaining kills. Its futile attempts at commentary regarding work/life balance or just how bad “faceless” upper management is fall so flat it’s comical. Nothing like multi-millionaire James Gunn telling me how awful it is to have to work a real job for a living. Great work. And its one-dimensional characters do little more than create a slight sigh of relief when they’re dispatched without regard.
A singular attempt at cleverness is broached from the beginning when we see a colony of ants in an ant farm on someone’s desk. Oh, look at that, these workers are nothing more than mindless ants! But any attempt at following that slightly clever idea is quickly thrown away. At one point, Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn), the big boss in the office, attempts to group up who should and shouldn’t be killed; who has the most value outside of work. Gunn had the perfect opportunity to make Barry a deep and more sinister antagonist. If Barry had grouped people into sets from most to least profitable for the company, we would have something. It would show that Barry is a forward-thinking villain who is trying to suck up to the people who get paid even MORE than him!
Missed Opportunities for a Smarter Corporate Villain
I’ll do you one better. After all of that, what if the bad guys that Barry recruited to help him cull his subordinates realized they were just pawns in the game of Big Business? So then they attempt to repent by killing Barry in the hopes that they can find a common means of escape from this hell? Why is there zero attempt at making an interesting story other than this shitty, watered-down Battle Royale with people we don’t give a shit about? Instead of anything interesting, we’re just given a group of baddies who try to get into the security office’s gun safe. The only reason we’re slightly scared of the “bad guys” is because they’re bad guys.
The only slightly interesting performances we get are from David Dastmalchian and Adria Arjona, even if it might be a fluke. As someone who is a fan of Greg McLean and the Wolf Creek series, something just felt disconnected about nearly every aspect of The Belko Experiment. I’ve brought it up before that sometimes it’s okay to have a film that doesn’t tell a great story as long as the kills can carry some of the weight. But to say this film has a story is laughable, and that carries over to how flat this film looks.
Skip The Belko Experiment and Watch Mayhem Instead
It’s weird how sour this film left me. When I was watching it, I found myself grimacing at some of the kills. And I didn’t vehemently dislike it as much as this review would suggest. But as I sat there and thought longer, I just couldn’t wrap my head around what anyone sees in this. Mayhem is an all-around better film that tackles this same subject but in a much better way. So if you ever decide to sit down and watch The Belko Experiment, maybe go watch Mayhem on Shudder instead.
Would it be a month of coverage on Horror Press if I didn’t bring up at least one aughts film? I know the curator of all things Horror Press, James-Michael, is shaking his fists at the sky and cursing the fact that he approved me covering The Hitcher. Of all the remakes that were so pervasive throughout the aughts, The Hitcher is one that slipped completely under my radar. And that’s a damn shame. It wouldn’t be until I found a DVD copy at Bookoff that I finally got the opportunity to watch it. Hot damn, the critics really got it wrong here.
The Hitcher: A Road Trip Turned Nightmare
Jim Halsey (Zachary Knighton) and his girlfriend Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) are on a road trip to Lake Havasu in Jim’s gorgeous Oldsmobile 442. An unfortunate run-in with a mysterious hitchhiker, John Ryder (Sean Bean), Jim and Grace find themselves in a fight for life and death. Only, John isn’t their only concern. With the 5-0 hot on their tails, Jim and Grace must escape from a psychopathic man with a death wish and the hot-tempered, hot-faced Lieutenant Esteridge (Neal McDonough). As the odometer grows, so does the body count.
The Hitcher is one of those remakes that does not have the approval of the original’s lead, Rutger Hauer. Which is astounding to me. Sure, the original is good. But it doesn’t set itself apart from the crowd too much. Rutger Hauer’s John is slightly more reserved, and while he has an edge to him, I don’t necessarily find him overly menacing. (Don’t kill me.) Sean Bean’s John Ryder, on the other hand, is furiously terrifying. There’s no question that there are tons of issues with the Platinum Dunes remake, though, for me, the pros significantly outweigh the cons.
Jim Halsey Falls Flat
The biggest issue is the character of Jim Halsey. I love how the roles of Jim and Grace are swapped from the original film. It brings an updated, modern edge to the film and is a great way to throw audiences who have seen the original. Though I can imagine the hyper-masculine fans of the original were not too happy with that. When it was decided to swap the roles of the characters, it seems like any character depth for Jim was thrown out of the window. I think Zachary Knighton is a wonderful actor who does the best with what he has, but he doesn’t have enough to work with. Writers Eric Red, Jake Wade Wall, and Eric Bernt updated the film with tons of epic scenarios and moments, while seemingly forgetting to make the supposed lead of the film interesting.
On top of cardboard Jim, the inciting police incident just feels very forced. Grace runs into a diner, covered in blood, after she and Jim found a family butchered by John. Someone from the diner calls the police, which leads to Jim and Grace being arrested and charged with murder. Whether or not that’s supposed to be commentary on rural police doesn’t matter because it completely fails to do anything other than forcibly push the story forward.
Besides that? I hate to say, but I don’t have many issues with The Hitcher.
Soundtrack and Atmosphere: A High-Octane Experience
First and foremost, The Hitcher’s soundtrack is incredible. We start the film with Move Along by The All-American Rejects. Talk about a shot of adrenaline. And the greatest needle drop in all of aughts horror history is Nine Inch Nails’s Closer during the film’s most wild car chase. It’s hard not to get lost in this film when the music kicks in.
What really sells this film is how intensely they handle the violence and the film’s gorgeous chase scenes. It’s no Death Proof, but these scenes are miles above the Fast movies that were out at this time. In a day and age where chase scenes are overly produced, badly edited, and just plain boring, The Hitcher manages to infuse horror and action in a way that probably won’t be seen again. Watching films like The Hitcher makes me sad for the state of modern cinema. The Hitcher wasn’t made to win scores of Oscars; it was made by people passionate about telling a badass, harrowing story (minus Jim). And they greatly excel at that.
The Hitcher Is a Misunderstood Cult Favorite
The Hitcher falls in line with my running theory of post-9/11 ultra violence. We were a nation scared of what happened, what was happening, and what seemed to be on the horizon–The Hitcher bottles that fear and anger, packaging it into a nasty piece of genre. Sean Bean and Sophia Bush are an on-screen match made in heaven. They wade through harsh lighting, thick film grain, and buckets of blood to deliver a film that critics and audiences unfairly panned. While audiences may have moved along, I sure didn’t. I want to exist in a world of nothing but aughts genre films, but am forced to live in a world of elevated horror. Le sigh.
