With the recent cooler weather and summer coming to a close, many of us are embracing fall by wearing cozy hoodies, eating pumpkin spice everything, and staying inside watching some of our favorite horror and Halloween movies. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but many of our favorites for spooky season–Hocus Pocus, Halloween, and Scream–all have at least one sequel. This month, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, the sequel to the original Beetlejuice, debuted more than three decades after the original.
The original Beetlejuice came out in 1988 and starred 15-year-old Winona Ryder, who you might recognize as Joyce Byers from Stranger Things. The original film begins with the recently deceased couple, the Maitlands, who refuse to leave their home even though they are dead and a new family–Delia and Charles Deetz and their teenage daughter Lydia–has moved in. The Maitlands want to get the Deetz family out of their home, so they do everything they can to scare them away. When that doesn’t work, they get help from the ghost Beetlejuice, but he only makes things worse. Rather than being scary, the original Beetlejuice is more of a comedy.
Winona Ryder (Lydia), Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), and Catherine O’Hara (who plays Delia in Beetlejuice, but you might know her as Kevin’s mom in Home Alone) have returned to star in the new version alongside Jenna Ortega, who is 21 in real life but plays Lydia’s 15-year-old daughter in the movie. Lydia and her daughter, Astrid, return home after a death in the family. Lydia, who is still seeing Beetlejuice, is paranoid that the ghost is back and wants nothing to do with him. Astrid accidentally winds up in the afterlife, though, Lydia has to ask her old “friend” for help saving her.
This is not Jenna Ortega’s first “spooky” project, as she also starred in Wednesday, a Netflix show centered on Gomez and Morticia’s daughter from the Addams Family; like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Wednesday is directed by Tim Burton, who directed Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As well as starring in Burton’s horror projects, Ortega also brought her talents to the Scream franchise in Scream 5 and 6, and she starred in both Insidious films. Ortega is said to be the new Winona Ryder, because like Ryder, she has become a very familiar face in many horror movies. In the 1980s and 90s, Ryder starred in horror projects like Edward Scissorhands and Dracula; she returned to these types of roles in 2016 with Stranger Things.
I saw the new movie with my sister, Berkeley, and we both really enjoyed it. It is definitely a fun movie to watch with your family–even your parents since a lot of the movie is about how hard it can be for parents to understand their teenagers (and for those teenagers to understand their parents). Lydia’s relationship with Delia (who is actually her step-mom), and Astrid’s relationship with Lydia parallel each other because neither the young Lydia (from the first movie) or Astrid (from the new film) see eye to eye with their mothers. This conflict is evident when all three of them are together in the movie, especially since Lydia is around 15-16 in the first movie and Astrid is the same age in the sequel. These parallels also reminded me of watching the original movie with my family when I was younger, so the film felt really nostalgic. Overall, I think this is a great movie to watch with your family this Halloween, though I honestly prefer the first movie. I was not the only one who had good things to say about the movie: sophomore Sarah Dunn Sawyer saw the movie when it came out with her friend and classmate Katie Kos and thought “it was a really good, fun movie.”
Not only have horror and Halloween movie franchises been creating new movies, but other genres have also been branching out. This year Twisters (1996) was remade, starring Daisy Edgar Jones (who played Rey in the third Star Wars trilogy) and Glen Powell (from Anyone But You). Ghostbusters–which you might consider a Halloween movie and first came out in 1984–has also added a new movie to the collection: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (March 2024) as a follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021). Finally, the Bad Boys (1995) franchise has gotten a new film with Bad Boys: Ride or Die. With all these new movies coming out, you may want to go back and rewatch some of your favorites because you never know when they might gain a sequel or be remade for a new generation.
If all of these new movies are making you feel a little nostalgic, and you’re also excited that October is just around the corner, you’re in luck because two classics–The Nightmare Before Christmas (October 11th) and Hocus Pocus (October 18th)–are being re-released in theaters but only for one night, so make your plans now!
