Summary
Beetlejuice Beetlejuicetakes place years after the original film, adapting itself into the modern age. Lydia Deetz now hasa ghost-hunting showsimilar to those that fans can watch on Max likeGhost Adventuresor on YouTube likeGhost Files. She still sees ghosts, but is haunted by the fact that her husband, Richard, died, and she can’t see him, which leads to an estrangement with her daughter Astrid.
What’s more, Lydia gets the news that her father, Charles, has died, and she has to go home right away to the old house. What’s waiting there, of course, is a reunion with the titular Beetlejuice inBeetlejuice Beetlejuice. Fans can prepare themselves for a lot of good laughs despite the dark setup. These examples are some of thebest quotes in the movie.
8“What A Horrible Thought.”
Delia Deetz
Delia has some of the best lines in the movie, and this early one stands out. Her daughter, Lydia, meets Delia at one of her art exhibits to see what’s wrong. At first, Lydia thinks Charles, her father, left Delia, which is when Delia replies with this line.
In actuality, Delia meant that Charles left this mortal coil, as he died on a bird-watching trip which was told visually to viewers via an animated segment akin toThe Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s funny that, to Delia, Charles divorcing her is worse than death, which shows where her priorities are at.
7“Foreigners.”
The Janitor
Right after the aforementioned art show, one of Delia’s collaborators leaves in a huff because she is canceling the show (on account of Charles dying). As he storms away, this artist falls down a manhole, dies, and ends up in the afterlife. As he explores the building, he comes across a janitor who is played by Danny DeVito,someone Tim Burtonhas worked with a lot.
The artist speaks French, and the janitor can’t understand him, which is when he scoffs about foreigners and drinks some kind of toilet cleaner as the artist walks away. The janitor has this same reaction when he runs into Delores soon after, another foreigner to the janitor’s standards, but one with a little more power than the artist.
6“Astrid!”
Astrid and Lydia are estranged because Astrid does not like Rory, the new man Lydia is seeing, and also because she misses her real dad, Richard. When Lydia and Delia travel to Astrid’s school to tell her the bad news about her grandpa Charles, Delia says she wants to handle it. Instead of using a calming voice and talking to Astrid face to face, Delia screams Astrid’s name in the middle ofthe school courtyard.
What follows are a series of random thoughts about Lydia and Charles, in which she refers to as him as something that should not be mentioned in front of school children. It’s an intense scene, but also a pretty hilarious one, all things considered.
5“Looks Like It Got A Little Too Real.”
Beetlejuice
Wolf Jackson is a new character in this film who looks like a grizzled detective froma noir film. He is an actor playing the role of detective, even in the underworld, who explains to Beetlejuice that things got real on the set one day, which led to his death.
This is when Beetlejuice remarks that things got a little too real, as half of Jackson’s brain is exposed. The reason the two of them are talking is that the aforementioned Delores character who escaped from custody is Beetlejuice’s ex-wife. As a “Soul Sucker”, she is out for revenge, and Beetlejuice is at the top of her list.
4“What?”
It may seem like a nothing line, but the way Catherine O’Hara delivers it is brilliant. After the funeral for Charles, Father Damien comes up to console Delia and the rest of the family. He talks a lot of nonsense about angels and the afterlife, which is when Delia replies with this bewildered “What?” followed by a hard cut.
This joke is played again when Father Damien tries to talk some sense into other characters, but in that instance, he was also drinking. It could be implied that drinking is why he felt so “off” at the funeral earlier too. No one said being a priest was easy.
3“I Was A Humble Grave Robber.”
Instead of being stuck in the model town in this sequel, Beetlejuice is back to middle management within the underworld. He works with a bunch of shrunken-headed individuals, the only named one of whom is Bob. After learning about Delores’ resurrection, Beetlejuice decides to tell Bob his backstory.
For some reason, themovie flips to black and white, and Beetlejuice is dubbed over in Spanish with subtitles. In this sequence, he explains how he was a “humble grave robber” before he met Delores. In reality, being a grave robber is anything but humble, as it is a deplorable job, which in turn makes it funny.
2“They Say He Has My Eyes.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceisa horror comedyand, as such, there are some creepy scenes in the film, the oddest of which happens when Lydia and Rory get sucked into Beetlejuice’s world, wherein he pretends to be a psychiatrist.
While playing the good doctor, he also makes allusions that Lydia is pregnant, and she balloons up in seconds, followed by the birth of a creepy baby Beetlejuice puppet. It’s a great use of practical effects mixed with CG. As this strange monster is running around the office, Beetlejuice remarks that it definitely has his eyes.
1“In The Words Of Dostoevsky, Later F***er.”
When Astrid meets Jeremy, a boy in town, he is readingCrime and Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s one of those novels that teens may have had to read in school, or perhaps for a college class. It’s not an easy book, to be sure, but Astrid has read it, which impresses Jeremy initially.
This leads him to tricking Astrid into giving him her life, but Jeremy’s plot is foiled by Beetlejuice, who takes on the role of one of the tollbooth operators. He gives Jeremy a stamp to be condemned to eternal hell and says this line, which is the only F-Bomb in the film.
