Tim Burton Opens Venice 2024

“For everybody that was a cool teenager, what happens to you as an adult?” asks Burton. “What’s important to you? What happens when you’ve got kids?” When Buchanan suggests that Lydia’s arc resembles his own, Burton replies, “You’re absolutely right. I’ve been through all this stuff, so it’s quite cathartic. I identified with Lydia then and now.”

Starting out as an animator for Disney, Burton drew on German Expressionism, Disney’s Silly Symphony series of short musical cartoons, the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen, and a dash of 1960s pop art to forge a personal stylistic imprint that made such early short films as Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984) a uniquely refreshing approach to the ghoulish and gory that was also somehow endearing—and in a way, almost cuddly.

The astonishing box-office success of Batman (1989) gave Burton the clout to tell stories that hit closer to home, such as Ed Wood (1994) or Big Fish (2003), both embraced by critics who would sour on him when he rolled out such bloated and moribund remakes as Dark Shadows (2012) and Dumbo (2019), Burton’s last feature before Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

The new film reunites Burton with Winona Ryder, who once again plays Lydia, now an Elvira-like host conducting seances on TV; Catherine O’Hara as her mom, Delia, a self-absorbed artist; and, of course, Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse, the irrepressible bio-exorcist. While Lydia and Delia’s relationship has warmed over the years, Lydia’s daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), is the new teen looking to break away from her family.

“From its title on down, this is a movie that can’t help but undercut any sense of pomposity around the occasion,” writes Vulture’s Nate Jones in an overview of his first night in Venice. “And yet somehow there’s nothing cynical about it,” writes Vulture’s Alison Willmore. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is, instead, a return to form that finds Burton and much of the previous cast getting weird, gross, and, yes, goth in both an idyllic New England town and a gleefully bureaucratic afterlife.”

The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin dismisses Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as “messy and tiresome,” and the Guardian’s Xan Brooks finds it “lazily amiable.” But for Jonathan Romney in Screen, this is Burton’s “most full-bloodedly Burtonesque venture in ages, with its boisterous mix of the facetious and the funereal.”

Romney notes that the “priority” here “is to cram in as many grisly comic riffs as possible, from visual puns on phrases like ‘inner child’ and ’spill your guts’ to a relishable digression on Beetlejuice’s romance with Delores [Monica Bellucci], recounted in Italian by way of homage to Euro horror maestro Mario Bava. But the film’s most laudable achievement is its boisterous way of reclaiming highly tactile practical and animatronic effects for the CGI age—in keeping with one character’s mantra, ‘Keep it real.’”

Speaking of Delores, “she pops up, elegantly, only here and there,” writes Time’s Stephanie Zacharek. “But when she does, the movie veers into a gothic-horror reverie. Her zig-zag stapled face, resplendent as a Japanese bowl repaired with gold, is a nod not just to Boris Karloff’s OG Frankenstein’s monster, but also to the great Burton creations he inspired, like Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride’s Sally Finkelstein. She’s the face of amour fou, imperfectly perfect in every way, the dream-nightmare you know you ought to run from. Good luck with that.”

“Tapping into the maniacally playful spirit of one of his enduring golden-era hits, the director seems reinvigorated,” writes the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney. “The zippy pacing, buoyant energy, and steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments hint at the joy Burton appears to have found in revisiting this world, and for anyone who loved the first movie, it’s contagious.”