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If you're looking for the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ending explained, then you've come to the right place. We've got everything you need to know about the head spinning finale right here, including Lydia’s weird dream sequence and all of the questions you may have regarding each character's whereabouts, whether they are still in the afterlife or not.
*Spoiler warning* Of course, this means there are plenty of spoilers below, so make sure you have seen the new Beetlejuice sequel before reading on – you have been warned!
If you're still reading, then that means you want all the details on the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ending explained. So, without further ado, grab your Handbook for the Recently Deceased, and let's head to the Neitherworld below to get all caught up!
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ending explained (spoilers)
The ending pretty much kicks off when Astrid and Lydia escape the afterlife and head to the church in Winter River where Lydia’s wedding to partner Rory is supposed to take place at midnight on Halloween night. Inside is the Priest and a bunch of influencers all holding up their phones, all invited by Rory. But before the ceremony can take place, the Ghost with the Most shows up with Delia to claim his bride, and in a bid for privacy, Beetlejuice causes the guest’s faces to be sucked into their phones. Rory kicks up a fuss, but Beetlejuice injects him with truth serum, and Lydia’s greasy boyfriend soon reveals he was only with her for the money and fame her ghost-hunting business brought.
With Beetlejuice in his original wedding suit and Lydia in her memorable red frock, the wedding that has been on hold for almost 40 years ensues. The movie then perfectly plays homage to the iconic dinner party scene in the original 1988 movie where Barbara and Adam made the guests dance and sing to Day-O by Harry Belafonte. Beetlejuice possesses Astrid, Lydia, Delia, and The Priest, and together they all lipsync to MacArthur Park by Richard Harris. As the lyric "All the sweet, green icing flowing down, someone left the cake out in the rain" plays, a giant Beetlejuice-themed wedding cake oozes green icing. Gross.
But, yet again, it looks like Betelgeuse won't get his happy ever after all as Willem Dafoe’s ex-actor turned dead afterlife detective Wolf Jackson breaks into the church with his Blue Boys, ready to take Delia and Beetlejuice back to the afterlife where they belong. Wanting to get on with the I do’s, Beetlejuice freezes the officers, but just as he does, his ex-wife breaks through the door, claiming that his soul belongs to her. Now, it looks like the ghoul is really in for it, but remembering their time in the sand dunes, Astrid and Lydia draw a door on the floor and knock three times, opening up a portal to the afterlife. From there, a sandworm jumps out, swallowing Beetejuice’s wife and Rory whole.
Now, with two of the baddies down, there is only one to go. Astrid, Lydia, and Delia all band together and call the ghost's name three times, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." He quickly swells up like a giant balloon and pops, leaving fragments of him on the floor. The police officers unfreeze and Wolf Jackson claims victory for himself. Delia is taken back to the afterlife and Astrid and Lydia are now free to live out their lives, happily together. In a scene quite similar to the opening one, Lydia is back on her wicker chair hosting her ghostly show. But this time she announces she is retiring as an on-screen medium to spend more time with her daughter.
Before the credits roll, we get a glimpse of life after Beetlejuice as Astrid and Lydia take a trip to visit Bran Castle (Dracula’s castle) in Transylvania, Romania. Whilst there, Astrid meets and falls in love with a man dressed as a vampire. In a flash the two are married and expecting a baby, all while Lydia watches on. But to her mother’s horror, Astrid gives birth to a baby Beetlejuice, the same one we saw earlier in the movie. The tot proceeds to murder a doctor and crawl up the walls and ceiling chasing a fly, finally biting a lightbulb and exploding. Suddenly, Lydia wakes up in bed from the terrible nightmare but has Beetlejuice lying beside her, presumably now her husband. Nope, that was a dream too, as Lydia wakes again, but now in her own bed, alone. Phew!
How did Lydia and Astrid escape from the afterlife?
After Atrid is duped by her new boyfriend slash serial killer into entering the afterlife to trade her life for his, the teen seems to be heading for her end as she is dragged away to the Soul Train by afterlife employees. But her mother saves her and the two head for an emergency exit. However, the door leads them to Sandworm territory, but luckily Astrid’s dad opens a door to the sandy planet and pulls them into a storage cupboard. After sharing a heart-touching reunion with their long-lost dad and partner, the two go up a secret ladder to the real world and head for the church.
Is Beetlejuice dead, for good?
After that turbulent final scene and rather weird dream sequence, you may be wondering - is Beetlejuice actually dead? And not just dead like he already is, we mean dead dead, like no coming back. As mentioned earlier in the flick, when you die in the afterlife, you die for good. In the movie we see many dead people in the afterlife die this way such as Danny DeVito’s character and the bio-excorcist's right-hand man Bob.
But, as we know, The Juice seems pretty indestructible. He can spin his head all the way around, take on all different forms, and is often referred to as a demon rather than a ghost, so we are unsure if he can actually die. When he bursts at the end of the movie, it does seem like he may have died for good. But there is a possibility he has just been banished to the afterlife yet again. In the first movie, he is banished by Lydia and co who all chant his name three times. As the same happens in the sequel too, the ghoul could just be back in his underworld office right now running his bio-exorcist business as usual. We guess we’ll have to wait for a third movie to see if The Juice shakes loose again.
What's up with Lydia’s weird dream?
We can't be the only ones who thought that dream was real for a second, right? Lydia's dream, or rather nightmare, starts out with the mother and daughter duo taking a trip to Dracula’s castle. But things really get weird when Astrid rather abruptly gets married and all of a sudden is pregnant with a baby Beetlejuice. Luckily this all turns out to be a dream, as well as the mini dream Lydia has about waking up next to her new hubby Beetlejuice. But this does make us wonder if this means The Juice is still lurking around, as he is showing up in Lydia’s dreams just as he was appearing in visions just before he was summoned again. Could this hint at a possible Beetlejuice 3? We hope so!
What happened to Astrid's dad?
When Astrid ventures into the afterlife, she finally gets to see her late dad, Richard, who died years earlier in the jungle. Richard makes contact with Astrid and Lydia when he saves them from the Sandworm. Afterwards he tells them both he has been watching over them the whole time, and says his goodbyes as they leave for the real world. This is the last we see of Richard, but we presume he is still in the underworld. Maybe now he has shown himself, and now that Astrid is a confirmed medium like her mother, he may visit them as a spirit.
What happened to Delia?
One of the most shocking twists in the movie had to be Delia’s demise. When performing a ritualistic offering to her late husband Charles, the artist holds up two defanged snakes she had shipped over. But the catch is, Delia was ripped off and they were never really defanged, so when they bit her, she died.
But whilst in her own personal hell, waiting in line in The Neitherworld Waiting Room, she calls Beetlejuice to help her escape and attends Lydia’s makeshift wedding to the ghoul. However, as she is now sadly dead, Wolf Jackson takes her back to the afterlife, where she there meets up with her late husband. But that's not before the pair promise to visit, or rather haunt, Lydia and Astrid in the real world. We can hear her ghostly complaining now.
Do Barbara and Adam make a cameo?
After many fans wondered if the original movie’s main characters Barbara and Adam Maitland, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, would make an appearance in the sequel, it sadly hasn't come true. Besides the Adam and Barbara figurines in the model in the opening credits, no, the two do not appear in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. It was confirmed in casting news and the trailer that the second movie would not revolve around the couple, which makes sense due to the time difference between the two movies, and the fact that ghosts don't age. But fans still held out hope for the two popping up, even if just for a minute.
The only mention of the Maitlands is when Lydia tells Astrid of the ghost couple she used to see in the attic. But when Astrid asks where they are, she replies "they found a loophole and they moved on," suggesting they made their way into the great unknown.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is out in theaters now. Make sure to read our spoiler-free Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review here. For more, check out all upcoming horror movies on the way or keep up to date with our list of 2024 movie release dates.
