Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 4K Ultra HD Review

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the sequel to Tim Burton’s surprise hit Gothic horror comedy film from 1988, Beetlejuice. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara reprise their roles and are joined by new cast members including Justin Theroux, Arthur Conti, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe.

It is thirty years later, and Lydia (Ryder) is now a famous medium who is struggling to connect with her daughter Astrid (Ortega) and her mother Delia (O’Hara). In the wake of a tragedy, the family return to the infamous “ghost house” where they first ran into the specter Betelgeuse (Keaton), whom Lydia has been having a strange feeling has been stalking her. Upon their return, Astrid winds up entangled with a murderous ghost named Jeremy (Arthur Conti) who manipulates her into entering the afterlife, prompting Lydia to do something she never thought she would do – seek help from Betelgeuse, who himself is being stalked by his deadly, soul-sucking ex-wife (Monica Bellucci).

Burton’s off-kilter, darker than dark aesthetic is on the mark with this sequel, mixing in his first love stop-motion animation and quirky musical interludes like a psychedelic interpretation of “MacArthur Park.” The visuals and the madcap adventures are all there, but the film still does not quite live up to the zaniness of the original due to the slightly longer runtime and couple more subplots, such as Lydia’s relationship with her manager/fiancé (Theroux), Astrid’s crush on the neighborhood killer ghost, and the soul-sucking ghost looking for revenge on Betelgeuse. There are at times too many places to focus one’s attention.

That said, there is never a moment where the film gets bogged down, it skips from moment to moment and insanity to insanity with that visual flair that has been unique to Burton for decades now, yet it still seems fresh. Even as he evokes strange worlds of Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari he always comes across as one hundred percent Tim Burton.

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The Video

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was shot on the Sony CineAlta Venice 2 in 4K, it utilizes a 4K Digital Intermediate and is presented in a 1.85:1 HEVC 2160p (4K UHD) Dolby Vision encodement with HDR10 Metadata showing a MaxLL of 308 nits and MaxFALL of 66 nits. There is not much going on with the Dolby Vision grading as far as highlights and extra brightness overall. This presentation may as well be SDR. Without a direct comparison to the Blu-ray or running tests with a meter, I cannot really say that we are seeing expanded color gamut either, but the colors do look vibrant. The reds really look juicy. Black levels are inky and lights look good, but they do not ‘pop’ against the dark backgrounds you would normally expect from HDR. Overall, the picture is detailed and clean with a very filmic and organic look even as it is shot digitally in 4K. I see no issues with noise, banding, or stairstepping.

The Audio

The English Dolby Atmos track is stellar. It has wide dynamic range, strong height awareness, and an excellent balance of atmospherics and solid sound effects mixed around the base channels and overheads. Some more aggressive scenes include a sequence with Bee Gees “Tragedy” that explodes from all the channels and a “Soul Train” homage in the underworld. The low end also bumps, to use a very technical term.

The Supplements

If there were one thing I would do differently with this release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that would be move all the bonus features onto a separate disc just to squeeze out a little more bandwidth for the video, especially since there are three lossless Atmos mixes for the film. But that’s just me splitting hairs.

Bonus Features:

• Movies Anywhere Digital Code
• Commentary by Director Tim Burton
• The Juice is Loose: The Making of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (1080p; 00:27:37)
• The Ghost with the Most: Beetlejuice Returns! (1080p; 00:08:34)
• Meet the Deetz (1080p; 00:06:52)
• Shrinkers, Shrinkers Everywhere! (1080p; 00:06:26)
• An Animated Afterlife: The Stop-Motion Art of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (1080p; 00:09:14)
• ‘Til Death Do We Park: Beetlejuice and Lydia’s First Dance (1080p; 00:07:54)

The Final Assessment

This is a reference release of a sequel no one realized they needed. It does not exactly live up to the original, but it is a fun, dark, madcap sequel with the cast doing a bang-up job. Recommended.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is out on 4K Ultra HD + Digital is out November 19, 2024 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

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• Rating Certificate: PG-13 (for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.)
• Studios & Distributors: Warner Bros. | French Film Company | Plan B Entertainment | The Geffen Company | Tim Burton Productions | Tommy Harper Productions | Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
• Director: Tim Burton
• Written By: Michael McDowell | Larry Wilson | Alfred Gough
• Run Time: 104 Mins.
• Video Format: HEVC 2160p (4K UHD)
• HDR Format: Dolby Vision (HDR10 Compatible)
• HDR10 Metadata:
  • MaxLL: 308 nits
  • MaxFALL: 66 nits
  • Max. Luminance: 1000 nits
  • Min. Luminance: 0.0001 nits
• Primary Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible)
• Secondary Audio: English Descriptive Audio (US) | English Descriptive Audio (UK) | French DD 5.1 | Italian Dolby Atmos | Spanish (Castilian) Dolby Atmos) | Spanish (Latino) DD 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH | French | Italian SDH | Spanish (Castilian) | Spanish (Latino) | Danish | Norwegian | Swedish
• Street Date: 19 November 2024