Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024

The film opens as Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is filming an episode of her paranormal talk show, “Ghost House”. In it, she interviews people who claim they have ghosts in their house for Lydia to investigate since she can see ghosts. During a taping of one of her episodes, she is spooked by what appears to be Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) sitting in the audience.

After the show, she talks to her boyfriend/manager Rory (Justin Theroux). Lydia tries to take pills for her to calm down since she is still haunted by Betelgeuse, but Rory throws her pills away (save for two that he fishes out at her request). Lydia then gets a bunch of texts and calls from her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara), as she is frantic over terrible news.

Lydia goes to visit Delia at her art gallery since she has become a renowned artist. Delia informs Lydia that her father Charles has passed away. He was on a plane that crashed into the ocean, where he survived but was eaten by a shark (all depicted in claymation). They begin to make arrangements to return to Winter River for Charles’s funeral.

Down in the afterlife, Betelgeuse is working in a department with other shrunken head guys. Meanwhile, a ghost janitor (Danny DeVito) accidentally revives the remains of a woman named Delores (Monica Bellucci), who reassembles herself and staples her parts together. After she becomes whole, she grabs the ghost janitor and demands to know where Betelgeuse is. When she doesn’t get an answer, she sucks out the ghost janitor’s soul and leaves him as an empty skin bag.

Lydia and Delia go to find Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who is mocked at her school for being weird while also having a strained relationship with Lydia because Astrid feels that her mom spends more time with ghosts than with her. They arrive at Astrid’s school, where Delia makes an over-the-top announcement of Charles’s death to Astrid. She is stunned to hear about her grandfather’s passing, but she gets into an argument with Lydia since they never really discussed the death of Astrid’s father Richard (Santiago Cabrera), who died in a river in South America.

Betelgeuse is summoned by Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), an actor in life who is now a ghost detective. He confronts Betelgeuse over the appearance of Delores, which puts the Ghost With The Most on edge. Betelgeuse explains (in the style of an Italian novella) that when he was alive, Delores was his wife whom he met while he was a grave robber. After they got married, Delores tricked Betelgeuse into ingesting poison since she was the leader of a soul-sucking cult. Before dying, Betelgeuse chopped her to pieces, and he knows she is out for revenge. When Betelgeuse learns that Lydia is returning to Winter River, he sees this as his ticket out of there.

The Deetz women (and Rory) arrive in town and stay at Lydia’s old home on the hill. After the funeral, Rory seizes the opportunity to propose to Lydia in front of everyone, even though she clearly doesn’t want to say yes, and Astrid makes no effort to hide her disdain for Rory. Lydia reluctantly agrees to it. Annoyed, Astrid goes for a bike ride around town. She ends up crashing through a fence and hitting a tree, where she finds a boy named Jeremy Frazier (Arthur Conti) in his treehouse. They sit and bond for a minute as Astrid tells Jeremy about how Lydia is her mom.

Astrid later goes into the attic of the house, where she finds the old town model, as well as a pamphlet for Betelgeuse to trick her into saying his name. Lydia finds her and stops her from saying it. However, when Rory finds her, he attempts to incorporate his phony new wave methods to try and help Lydia, so he says Betelgeuse’s name three times and gets him and Lydia sent into the model where she is once again face-to-face with the trickster demon. He also manages to terrify Rory by doing his nightmare face before Lydia sends them back home.

Astrid goes to Jeremy’s house, where she finds that he owns a “Handbook For the Recently Deceased”, claiming that he got it at a yard sale in town. They make plans to hang out at his house on Halloween the following night.

Hours before the wedding, Astrid has Lydia drive her to Jeremy’s house for their hang-out. They go upstairs to his room, where Jeremy charms Astrid and they share a kiss, only to find themselves floating moments later. Jeremy reveals himself as a ghost who died falling out of the treehouse. He tells Astrid that he wants her help in bringing him back to life, with the promise that she can see her father again. Meanwhile, Lydia talks to a real estate agent who is going to sell the house, and the woman mentions the house that Jeremy lived on hasn’t been able to be sold because it’s a “murder house”. The agent says that Jeremy murdered his parents 23 years earlier, and he fell from the treehouse to his death before the police could arrest him. Lydia realizes Astrid is in trouble and rushes back to Jeremy’s house.

Jeremy has Astrid read an incantation from the Handbook, which opens a portal to the afterlife. Lydia arrives too late as Astrid has followed Jeremy through the door. With no other options, a desperate Lydia returns to the house and summons Betelgeuse. He is more than thrilled to have “the love of his afterlife” bringing him back, but after Lydia tells him she needs his help in saving Astrid, Betelgeuse agrees on the condition that Lydia marry him so he can get away from Delores. Lydia says yes. Betelgeuse blows open a door to the afterlife and has one of the shrunken head guys, Bob, take his place in case anybody goes looking for him.

In the backyard, Delia is performing some kind of ritual to honor Charles using two asps that she was told were defanged. She is proven wrong when both of them bite her in the neck, and she collapses dead.

Jeremy reveals his true intentions to Astrid, and that he tricked her into agreeing to give up her life for his. He leaves her to get put on the “soul train” while he goes to get his pass stamped, but Astrid is spotted by Richard, who runs after her. Lydia catches up to Astrid and stops her from getting on the train, but when they pass through an emergency exit, they end up on one of Saturn’s moons, AKA the home of the Sandworm. The monster emerges and chases after Lydia and Astrid, but they are pulled to safety by Richard.

Delores continues her afterlife killing spree after sucking out another ghost’s soul. She reaches Betelgeuse’s department and finds nothing and nobody. Jackson is interrogating Bob since he was dressed like Betelgeuse, but when Jackson leaves the room, Delores finds Bob and sucks out his soul too.

Lydia and Astrid reunite with Richard and bond briefly before they go to stop Jeremy from getting his pass stamped. They reach the window, where it looks like they are too late, and he smugly rubs it in their faces. Turns out the ghost that stamped the pass was Betelgeuse, and the stamp reads “SHIT OUT OF LUCK”. Betelgeuse pulls a lever to a trap door that sends Jeremy down to Hell.

Delia ends up in the afterlife’s waiting room, unable to grasp that she is no longer living. She resorts to calling upon Betelgeuse to help her get back, which he is more than happy to assist with.

After saying goodbye to Richard, Lydia and Astrid return to the living world, where Astrid apologizes to Lydia for how she treated her. They then remember the wedding is happening at that moment, and Lydia decides to follow through with it. When they get to the chapel, Betelgeuse arrives with Delia to stop the ceremony. He injects Rory with a truth serum, forcing him to reveal that he always thought Lydia’s paranormal abilities were bullshit and that he was only marrying her for her money. Betelgeuse provides Lydia with a glove to punch Rory across the room.

Betelgeuse then proceeds to try and get his and Lydia’s wedding to go through after trapping the other wedding guests inside their phones and warping their faces. Betelgeuse puts on an over-the-top musical number, even getting Jackson and his ghost cops to freeze in place. Delores then shows up to cut things short. Astrid grabs the Handbook and tries to find a loophole, as well as a way to get help. She draws a door on the floor to Saturn’s moon, bringing the Sandworm back out. Betelgeuse avoids getting eaten again by guiding the Sandworm into the path of Rory and Delores, allowing them to become its meal. Before Betelgeuse can finish the wedding, Astrid finds a loophole that says the contract Betelgeuse forced Lydia to sign for the marriage is null and void since he brought Lydia into the afterlife despite her still being alive. Lydia says his name three times and causes him to blow up like a balloon and pop.

Jackson unfreezes and tells the ladies that he has to bring Delia back with him to the afterlife. Delia bids Lydia and Astrid farewell but promises to haunt them until she is ready to cross over, and they reaffirm their love for Delia. In the afterlife, Delia is reunited with Charles (or the rest of his body that didn’t get eaten).

Later on, Lydia films one last episode of “Ghost House” to retire and spend more time with Astrid. The two book a flight to Transylvania, where Astrid appears to be attracted to a boy dressed like Dracula. The scene cuts to them getting married and Astrid later giving birth, only for her to give birth to a hideous Betelgeuse baby that kills the doctors. Lydia wakes up, since this was a nightmare, but she hears and sees Betelgeuse next to her. She wakes up from this nightmare as well, indicating she is not quite rid of him just yet.