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“Keep it real!” Willem Dafoe’s afterlife investigator, Wolf Jackson, bellows in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Wolf is delusional, which makes him right at home in this long-gestating horror-comedy sequel. The only connections with reality here are the practical effects. Director Tim Burton still uses them, as he did for the first “Beetlejuice” in 1988, back when computer graphics were still hatching like an egg from “Alien.”
There’s a delightful hand-sewn quality to Burton’s filmmaking. This includes the zombie skin rips on Wolf’s face (shades of Dafoe’s character in “Poor Things”) and also the patchwork quality of the screenplay by “Wednesday” scribes Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
But we don’t go to a “Beetlejuice” movie for the story. We go to watch Burton’s exuberant imagination in action — he was into giant sandworms way before Denis Villeneuve — and to visit with his memorably wacky characters.
First and foremost among these is Beetlejuice, the title ghoul played with agreeable gusto by Michael Keaton.
Beetlejuice, aka Betelgeuse, may require a reintroduction, since moviegoers last saw him in theatres 36 years ago. He advertises his services as a bio-exorcist, one who gets rid of humans who annoy ghosts. Summon him by uttering his name three times, and Beetlejuice and his staff of shrunken-head stooges, who are this franchise’s Minions, will scare away pesky mortals from hangouts beloved by immortals.
“The Juice,” as he calls himself, still looks like a clown who just smoked an exploding cigar. And he still talks and acts like a sailor on shore leave, eager to bed any woman he sees, especially if her name is Lydia. He’s really just here for the hell of it, which is more than OK.
He’s still on the prowl in picturesque (and fictional) Winter River, Conn., a sleepy town revealed via a drone flyover shot that recalls a similar establishing shot in the first film. Beetlejuice isn’t to blame, though, for the MIA status of confused rookie ghosts Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) from the first film. They’ve been written out of this one because they don’t fit the story. (“How convenient,” another character says.)
But there’s no shortage of people and phantoms, not all of whom are strictly necessary.
Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder reprise their roles as Deetz family stepmom Delia and her stepdaughter, Lydia, on whom Beetlejuice is sweet.
Delia is still making bizarro art while the ghost-whispering Lydia has grown up to become a professional paranormal sleuth with her own TV show, “Ghost House,” much to the annoyance of her peeved and disbelieving teen daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega).
Family tragedy brings the Deetz women back to Winter River, along with Lydia’s icky boyfriend and manager, Rory (Justin Theroux), and a soul-sucking and face-stitched ghost called Dolores (Monica Bellucci). Dolores used to be married to Beetlejuice and she wants him to pay for that mistake.
All of this makes about as much sense as a tombstone with a mail slot, although a narrative thread involving family reunification proves to be surprisingly moving. Who expected so many feels — maybe even a tear or two — in a “Beetlejuice” movie?
Mostly, though, it’s a blast to just watch these characters run riot in the “real” world and the afterlife, which you get to via the “soul train” (groan) and much red tape. The dead seem to be more in love with bureaucracy than the living, which may explain why dying is such a pain.
Danny Elfman is back doing the score, which once again sounds like a demonic circus, but there’s been a change to the pop classic that people trance along to. It’s no longer “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” from the first “Beetlejuice.”
I won’t tell you the title of the “new” tune, for fear of summoning a demon ear worm you’ll never get rid of. But it has something to do with a cake left out in the rain. Be afraid, be very afraid!
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