TALE OF THE MAD BIO-EXORCIST
Beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice , and you just conjured a ghost friendly bio-exorcist ready to take out troublesome humans out of your haunted house. Oh wait you don’t know what exactly a bio-exorcist is, or you are thinking “how did I die, I was just in the car a second ago” or why did I just trust a very poorly formatted flyer and summoned this person Betelgeuse. Well you probably didn’t go through the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, which is given to every soul that enters the afterlife or beyond. The chapter 6 Phantom Panic has all the solutions for occurring emergencies in you day to day afterlife.
Beetlejuice 2 the long-awaited sequel to the infamous 1988 Beetlejuice directed by the most talented Gothic horror movie writer and director, Tim Burton. With Michael Keaton reviving his role as “Betelgeuse” after some good 36 years along with Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara resuming their roles as Lydia Deetz and Delia Deetz respectively. The movie also features “Jenna Ortega” the renowned Wednesday Adams from the popular Netflix series “Wednesday”, with the role of Astrid Deetz. This fantasy movie is based on the characters of Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson that were showcased in the 1988 Beetlejuice. The film has made a box office hit with $408 million worldwide.
Beetlejuice 2 is a horror comedy movie that revolves around a bio-exorcist, Betelgeuse from the afterlife. Bio-exorcist is similar to what we know as an exorcist who takes demons or ghost out of the house of the living, but a bio-exorcist is a demon who takes the living out of house of a ghostly soul. According to the movie whenever a soul pass to the afterlife and beyond they are given the handbook for the recently deceased, which sometimes has a flyer attached to it that says “Betelgeuse the ‘Bio-exorcist’, troubled by the living, is death the problem and not the solution, unhappy with eternity, having difficulty adjusting, speak my name 3 times, beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice”, this playful plan of Betelgeuse is the main plot of the movie and we can see this mischievous personality in the acting as well.
Michael Keaton seamlessly plays his role as beetlejuice after a long interval of time; he easily got back into character, as if it was just yesterday that they filmed the debut film. The way he portraits the character, the way he talks, his actions, little dance sequences, humor sets the mood of the movie.
Winona Ryder who plays Lydia Deetz is shown to be a grown adult and a famous figure that can see and talk to ghosts. Not to give spoilers, but Beetlejuice is still committed to Lydia. Catherine O’Hara who plays Delia Deetz the mother of Lydia Deetz makes a comeback as the savage women she was in the first sequel.
Not to mention Jenna Ortega who plays Astrid Deetz a high school student, who apparently is not very fond of her mother, is shown to be a person who doesn’t believe in ghosts to think otherwise as the movie commences. Also, Monica Bellucci who plays the character of Delores a new addition to the franchise is shown to be a soul sucker, with a dark personality. I won’t say a lot about her character as to not give spoilers. Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Arthur Conti, Nick Kellington, Burn Gorman and the whole cast had a great screen play and acting, making the movie full of comicality. It can be said that the director’s expertise in this specific genre affected the actors positively.
Tim Burton did a great job directing the movie using his gothic intelligence, which enriched the movie experience, along with the Cinematography, costume and makeup team who added life to the movie, the ghostly appearance of the deceased souls, making sure that they could capture the essence of their deaths in the costumes and makeup. Some of the production team’s creativity and talent can be seen in the music and sound sequence as well.
Sound and music were one of the most imperative parts of the film uplifting the atmosphere. The theme song in the beginning of the movie raising the excitement of the viewers, Tragedy a song by Bee Gees that played during Delores part adds so much to the scene and gets everyone hooked. One song that had me hooked was the MacArthur Park by Richard Harris which played during the church scene, where beetlejuice made everyone to sing the song, along with the ghostly orchestra. Overall, sounding team did a great job.
The movie explores the depths of the afterlife, twisting it into a fun and joyful nature of the ghosts rather than the gruesome scary personality that we think that the ghost and demons hold. It is shown that the afterlife is not very different from that of the living world, and undoubtedly more relaxing.
For me the movie was entertaining mixture of horror comedy as I am not a big fan of horror films. It compelled me to watch the movie numerous times and not get bored once. Every single scene in the movie was engaging and I loved the acting done by the cast. The makeup and costume team did a magnificent work that I was obliged to watch the behind-the-scene to confirm whether the makeup and costumes were real or just figment of AI generation. I would highly recommend watching the movie if you haven’t already, it is a guarantee that you would love it.
By: Pragun Sharma
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