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Coming up on 40 years later, “Beetlejuice” looks just as good now as it did in 1988. Director Tim Burton’s supernatural comedy guides viewers through an Afterlife and Netherworld populated by all sorts of imaginatively ghoulish and often disgusting undead beings brought to life by either puppets or actors in Oscar-winning makeup (including, but not limited to, Michael Keaton as the titular chaos-causing “bio-exorcist”). Their (under)world around them, in contrast, is as cramped and blank as your average bureaucratic office building. It’s this juxtaposition of visually humdrum and anarchic elements that gives not just “Beetlejuice” but also so much of Burton’s early breakout work their flavor.
That strange, physical quality has also been missing from most of Burton’s recent films, so it’s a relief to hear that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” marks his return to a truly hand-crafted aesthetic. Indeed, early reactions say the “Beetlejuice” sequel leans heavily on practical effects, resulting in a movie that looks deliberately yet stylishly artificial — and even when digital components come into play, they’re designed to resemble the decades-old stop-motion trickery from the original “Beetlejuice.”
Speaking at a press event attended by /Film’s Jacob Hall (along with much of the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast), Burton reaffirmed that he and Keaton were in immediate agreement about that aspect of the sequel. Even so, Burton avoided rewatching “Beetlejuice,” reasoning that it was more important to evoke the film’s spirit than its exact look:
“[…] I remember the feeling of it and it’s hard to go back and recreate feelings, especially in this industry with all the [new] bells and whistles […] So go back to simple. Shoot it quickly. All the actors contributed. The script was there, it was a good script. But it was everybody […] [The VFX guys were] equally as important as the actors in terms of making things, puppets, quickly and doing it all. ‘Okay, get the guy over there, pull the string on the tail and then blah, blah, blah.’ All that kind of stuff, so that we could all kind of keep doing it in that same spirit. […]”
Practical effects are the key to Burton’s films
It’s one thing to imagine you’re sitting next to a walking, talking dead person whose face has been burnt off, or that Beetlejuice is splashing you with his entrails; it’s another thing to have actors in costumes and physical props to react to during filming. Luckily for the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast, that’s precisely what they had to work with, as opposed to having to act repulsed or nauseated by the sight of green screens and tennis balls on sticks. Co-star Justin Theroux, who plays Lydia Deetz’s (Winona Ryder) beau Rory in the movie, emphasized that this not only made his job easier, but it also, naturally, made things a lot more fun:
“I had never worked, I don’t think, with puppets or animatronics, and that was really fun to be able to work with […] Just all this blood and guts, rubber, latex, and goo stuff was just fun because when, for example, when [Beetlejuice] rips open [his] sweater and that blows all over me and Lydia, it really requires very little acting. Just react to that because it’s such a fun gag.”
Jenna Ortega (who plays Lydia’s daughter Astrid) and Catherine O’Hara (who returns as Lydia’s mother Delia) echoed that sentiment. “Well, yeah, because everything was practical […] You were seeing all of it in real time, so it was amazing,” Ortega noted. “It just gives you everything you need,” O’Hara added.
That visceral, perceivable quality is essential to making Burton’s art tick. The problem isn’t CGI itself (which, to repeat a common refrain here at /Film, is neither inherently superior nor inferior to practical effects), it’s that the filmmaker’s specific visual style loses its darkly seductive edge when given a digital makeover. Certain types of films benefit more than others from having that palpable texture, and that’s certainly the case with Burton’s gunky, gothic affairs.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” opens in theaters on September 6, 2024. Solana Token Creator
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