Keaton returns in a gruesome, funny sequel

This “soul sucker,” as she is called, is called Delores. Her mission is to find her ex, Beetlejuice, and kill him. It doesn’t matter that he is already dead – she can even more dead. The results are not pretty. Bellucci is considered one of the most beautiful actresses of her time, so I bet she had a lot of fun transforming herself into a Swingline-sponsored Frankenstein monster.

Meanwhile, in the land of the living, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has channeled her ability to see ghosts (as documented in the first film) into a show called “Ghost House.” Named after the possessed house she shared as a teenager with her father Charles (played by Jeffrey Jones in “Beetlejuice”) and stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara), the show features Lydia communicating with ghosts in other people’s haunted houses.

Lydia is honest, even though her dim-witted daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) thinks she’s a fraud. Delia describes the animosity between Lydia and Astrid as a karmic act; Lydia was just as mean to her stepmother as a teenager. She preferred the company of the ghosts who haunted her house, Adam and Barbara Maitland.

The Maitlands eventually found a loophole and were able to escape the Deetz house. (That loophole was that Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis did not reprise their roles.) But Lydia is still surrounded by death. At the beginning of Beetlejuice, we learn that she became a widow when her husband drowned. Delia is also a widow—Charles suffered a gruesome shark fate while birdwatching.

“He traveled halfway around the world to watch birds do it,” says Delia, “and it killed him!”

Charles, like everyone else in the Beetlejuice universe, ends up in the waiting room of the afterlife. However, the underworld has now expanded to include an office staffed by shrunken-headed employees and a police force led by Wolf Jackson (a hilarious Willem Dafoe). Jackson is not a real cop, but has played one in films. He owes his way to the afterlife to a live grenade that he thought was a prop.

There is also a Soul Train in the afterlife, which is inspired by – you guessed it – the TV show “Soul Train.” I really hope that this locomotive is still around when I die.

The plot gets rolling when Lydia begins hallucinating manifestations of Beetlejuice. Her slimy boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), the producer of “Ghost House,” berates her with New Age platitudes, ignoring her plight. Rory even utters the dreaded three B-words to discredit Lydia.

This mansplaining episode doesn’t go as he expected, but it does give Keaton one of several opportunities to put on a show. This time, he’s funnier in a sequel that’s better than its predecessor, but Beetlejuice is also much grosser and more violent.

Although the screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar is often hilarious and inventive, it has too many plot threads. Besides Dolores’ reign of terror and the death of a main character, there’s also a story about young love in which Astrid falls for a cute guy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti). Since this is a Tim Burton film, it’s safe to assume that the love story is the most twisted subplot of all.

Still, the actors hold our interest and make the film believable. Ryder is extremely motherly and feisty. O’Hara’s comic timing is impeccable. Keaton is as mean as he wants to be, but Theroux manages to be even funnier and more repulsive.

Although she gives a good performance, Ortega is the weak link here, if only because her character is reminiscent of how good Ryder’s sullen teenager was in the original.

But the real stars of Beetlejuice are the sets and effects. Some of the undead look so gross that they’ll bring tears of joy to older children. Everything is accompanied by Danny Elfman’s dark score and the memorable theme he wrote for the first film.

Although the Harry Belafonte songs that buoyed “Beetlejuice” are missing, the sequel does feature a morbidly amusing cover of “Banana Boat (Day-O).” Burton and company also pay tribute to the original’s best scene by staging another improvised playback scene in which the cast becomes obsessed with a song.

I won’t spoil the surprise by giving away the song title. I’ll just say that it’s the kind of obnoxious earworm that will burrow into your head and drive you crazy like Beetlejuice would.

★★★

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Director: Tim Burton. Screenplay: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Danny DeVito. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, Suburbs. 104 minutes. PG-13 (the afterlife is a cruel place, in word and deed)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.