“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is haunting its audience 36 years after the release of the original and, in keeping with the vibe of the 1988 film that put calypso back in rotation — starring a 16-year-old Winona Ryder as spooky goth Lydia Deetz — there’s a whole new batch of earworms — scratch that . . . sandworms — to become sonically possessed by.
The sequel, in part, revolves around a grown-up Lydia reluctantly reuniting with Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to save her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) after she gets tricked into swapping lives with a parricidal ghost boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), narrowly avoiding being trapped in the afterlife.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” features many of the same players from the original film aside from the former angsty goth teen — who has evolved into a professional ghost seer — including her artist step-mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara). The cast is rounded out with newcomers like Gen-Z scream queen, Ortega, Justin Theroux, who plays Lydia’s narcissistic boyfriend, Rory, and Willem Dafoe, the ghost of a dead actor.
However, at the crux of “Beetlejuice” has always been Lydia’s perpetual teen angst, which Delia points out in the sequel is missing, saying, “Where’s that obnoxious goth girl who tortured me?” But, lucky for fans of the Beetle-verse, the angst didn’t fall far from the tree.
Salon glances back at the 1988 classic’s ability to highlight Lydia’s teen grit via the music that accompanies it, juxtaposed with the far more upbeat anthem of her daughter Astrid in the 2024 sequel. Angst may sound a bit different for Gen-Z, but ‘tude is genetic, or so it would often seem.
Lydia’s “I am alone. I am utterly . . . alone” scene
Following the infamous ghost-haunting scene where Delia and Charles (Jeffrey Jones) — along with their New York City friends — are possessed into singing “Banana Boat (Day-O)” by Harry Belafonte, Lydia is struggling in a very Bell Jar sort of way.
The troubled teen pens a Tumblr-worthy farewell note to her ghost family Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin) and her real family, dripping in sorrow over feeling out of place in her own home, which seems like it would actually be easy, given that it’s haunted and she’s a goth.
In the scene, operatic strings and the voice of legendary opera singer Maria Callas usher the audience into the darkness of Lydia’s mind. She writes, “I am alone. I am utterly . . . alone. You have sealed my fate with your betrayal. I can no longer stand to be used like a puppet between two deceitful worlds. By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped off . . . She scratches that out . . . having plummeted off the Winter River Bridge. Then you will know that I am no longer a toy in your petty feuds. Goodbye, Lydia.”
The music’s opera origins
The song that emphasizes this struggle in Lydia is “Regnava nel Silenzio” from the tragic opera,Lucia di Lammermoor. Written by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, this 1835 gothic opera is centered on a character named Lucia. In this version, Callas sings this aria while telling her maid that she has just seen the appearance of a ghost near a fountain. The ghost draws Lucia in but the fountain turns blood-red.
Lydia, who craves to be seen by her family, feigns craving death because of her relationship with Barbara and Adam, who live in the afterlife. In the song, Lucia is drawn to a similar yearning for death. Callas sings, “I forget my troubles/Tears turn into joy.”
She concludes that “Heaven opens up for me.” A potential parallel with Lydia’s ability to see and be connected to the afterlife and death. The opera itself injects a level of drama into Lydia’s heightened emotions. It’s only right that “Beetlejuice” accentuates the fleetingness of teenage intensity through a tragic opera.
Astrid’s “MacArthur Park” scene
Like her mother, Astrid also knows what it feels like when someone leaves your cake out in the rain.
Similarly trapped between the living and the dead, having fallen for a killer ghost who definitely has obsessed over a Death Cab For Cutie song or two (yeah, he’s been dead awhile . . . remember), while simultaneously mourning the loss of her father and grandfather, Astrid’s angst gets set to music in the sequel via a stand-out full-circle moment that bookends the film’s love of musical numbers.
As her mother is about to make the very bad decision of re-marrying to a tiny pony sporting money-grubber, Rory, Beetlejuice saves the day as much as a crusty sex pest is capable, possessing the Deetz family once again in an effort to break up the wedding and claim Lydia as his own bride — an effort that only works in part, after Lydia disses him once again.
“‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ is excellent, writes @jimbobbennett in a post to X, sharing a GIF of the dance number featuring Ortega and O’Hara. “Especially for Willem Dafoe jumping through a window to ‘MacArthur Park.”
Like mother, like daughter, sometimes the quickest way to get out of a funk is to press play on your favorite haunting tune . . . or have a ghost do it for you.
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