It took three and a half decades for a sequel to "Beetlejuice" to finally make it to the big screens. Tim Burton's original film was a success, defining his visual style, a mix of candy-colored lunacy and German Gothic expressionism, spawning an animated television, a Broadway musical and endless goth superfans. Several sequel ideas were developed after the first film's success, but none came to fruition. Talks were revived in 2015, with writer Seth Grahame-Smith developing a new story, and with Burton, Ryder and Burton in talks to return. Eventually, this script too fell apart, and it wasn't till 2022 that Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (who worked together with Burton on "Wednesday") developed a few script that finally was greenlit and got the gang back together. The story follows Lydia Deetz, now a widowed mother who hosts a ghost-themed TV show. Her daughter, who doesn't believe in the supernatural, comes face to face with death, and Lydia is forced to make a deal a demon from her past, quite literally, in the form of Betelgeuse, to save Astrid's life. The film was relatively well received by critics and fans, and was a success at the box office. Though the plot crams in many characters and some poorly developed sub-plots, it is nevertheless a bit of a return to form for Burton, who really wanted to return to his visual roots, creating a neon-soaked nightmare, with a strong emphasis on practical effects and gags.
Returning to the universe was frequent Burton partner Danny Elfman. Though Elfman has returned to his earliest roots in the last few years, heavily shifting his focus back to being a song-writer and rockstar, this score sees him returning to his break-out score. Most of the thematic material from the original form returns at some point or other, though here accompanied with a larger ensemble, additional electronic elements, and occasional choir. This second film does however feature a large number of song placements in key sequences, somewhat minimizing the role that Elfman's new music was able to take. In addition to returning motifs, he does introduce a new dramatic family theme for Lydia and Astrid, and a horror motif for Delores, Betelgeuse's demonic ex-wife out for revenge. Though perhaps lacking that fresh and inventive sound that shook the world with its boundless energy in the original score, this sequel score nevertheless delivers a fun revisit to a beloved classic in which fans of the composer are sure to find morbid delight.
WaterTower Music released a soundtrack album with the film's release, though this was mostly comprised of all the songs used in the film, with only Elfman's opening and closing credits. It wasn't till two months later that a full score album was properly released, by the same label. Waxwork Records also plans to release a vinyl version of the original song album, releasing in November. When I saw the score had finally released (the cover of which is rather lackluster), I jumped into covers, wanting to put out something to line up with Halloween. Here's a total of twelve new or alternate covers to choose from.
The first ten covers all use official poster art or promotional imagery. As per usual, several pieces had to be prepped first--combining two versions of a piece of art to get the widest composition, painting out text/titles, or enhancing images that were in low-resolution. Then the usual blend of tweaking saturation, colors, levels, etc. to try to make the images pop.
The only one which took a fair bit of manual editing was Cover 10, which uses the DVD box art, naturally in a much taller composition. I just slid the bottom characters up to form my square frame, the problem was, this mis-aligned all the black and white shades in the background, so I had to go in and edit the angles and edges of those shapes to line back up, while still keeping the overall flow intact.
Cover 11 uses a digital painting by Alex Vincent, drawing from the main theatrical poster, but echoing more the colors and paint-painted look of the original 1988 film's artwork. I simply stretched out the sides to better accommodate the framing and slightly tweaked the colors a bit, and painted out the title, and then cut-out the characters to go over my new title placement.
Finally, Cover 12 is just a small tweak on the upcoming vinyl cover produced by Waxwork Records, with the custom art being done by Phantom City Creative, so all creative credit here goes to them. I simply tweaked the text at the bottom, adding Elfman's credit. I also chose to add the green hues to the title (whereas the original just had the black and off-white alternating). I just liked the extra splash of color, tying into Betelgeuse's green hair at the top.
Hope you enjoy and let me know your favorites below!
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