Recommends

Three years after launching his career with Pee-wee's Big Adventure, filmmaker Tim Burton unleashed one of his most beloved films – the 1988 supernatural horror-comedy Beetlejuice.

The film starred Michael Keaton – the actor with whom Burton would go on to make 1989 mega-hit Batman – in the title role, a shady spirit who exorcises humans. Its wicked sense of humour and ghoulish outlook typified Burton's anarchic sensibilities.

Now Beetlejuice is back. With Keaton returning as the "Ghost with the Most", Burton once again takes up directorial duties for this long-awaited sequel. Pleasingly, it comes from a script by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who co-created Wednesday, the Netflix spin-off from the classic comedy creep show The Addams Family, for which Burton directed four of the first season's eight episodes.

Taking place years after the events of the first movie, the film reacquaints us with the picturesque town of Winter River, Connecticut, and with the Deetz family: mother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) and her offspring Lydia (Winona Ryder), who is still haunted by her interactions with Beetlejuice all that time ago. Lydia was once the Goth-loving teen but she now has a rebellious adolescent daughter of her own, Astrid (Wednesday star Jenna Ortega) When Astrid discovers the mysterious model town that's been in the attic all these years, a portal to the afterlife is once again opened.

As anyone knows who has seen the original, if you says his name three times (technically it's spelt "Betelgeuse" but pronounced "Beetlejuice", but let's go with the more familiar) the self-proclaimed "bio-exorcist" appears. "The juice is loose," he cries, as he materialises from the afterlife, bringing his own unique brand of mayhem, as well as that all-too-familiar black-and-white striped suit and crazed haircut.

Alongside Keaton, several new cast members join in the freaky fun. Italian actor Monica Bellucci (Spectre) plays Beetlejuice's wife, while Willem Dafoe (Poor Things) is an afterlife detective who, as a mere mortal, was a B-movie action star. Adding to the intrigue, Justin Theroux (Mulholland Drive) is in the mix as a mysterious new character named Rory, who has close ties to the Deetz family (and looks every bit as stylish and sartorially elegant as Lydia et al). The brilliant character actor Burn Gorman (Pacific Rim) – a performer tailor-made for Burton weirdness – also pops up in clerical guise, as the town's reverend, Father Damien.

Behind the camera, Burton is working with Haris Zambarloukos, the cinematographer best known for collaborating with Kenneth Branagh (he shot the beautiful monochrome images for the Oscar-winning Belfast). Wednesday's production designer, Mark Scruton, brings his visionary eye to the elaborate sets. Best of all, Burton fans will be pleased to learn that the director is reuniting with Danny Elfman, his long-time composer since the start of Burton's career, when he scored the theme music for Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

No spoilers, of course, but the famed Harry Belafonte song Day O (The Banana Boat Song) will probably make an appearance too. Last time, the Deetz family were possessed and made to perform this classic ditty.

But above all, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice offers the chance to see Keaton reprise one of his most famous roles, a comic masterclass in off-kilter oddity.

A big-screen spook-tacular, there will be no better way to see out the summer and usher in Halloween season.  James Mottram