Jenna Ortega‘s leading role in Tim Burton’s Netflix series Wednesday left her haunted by a viral dance scene that she choreographed herself. The actress has reunited with the gothic director, this time for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — but in the latest trailer for the film, she finds herself once again locked into another paranormal dance sequence.
In the clip, Ortega’s Astrid Deetz and Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz mirror each other’s movements in a round of choreography that leaves them both looking perplexed, as though they’ve been possessed and aren’t in control of their own bodies. It’s not an unlikely scenario, given that Astrid’s curiosity about her mother Lydia Deetz’s (Winona Ryder) past leads to the accidental opening of a portal to the afterlife.
“Ghosts aren’t real,” Astrid says in the trailer. “Only gullible people believe that kind of crap.” By the end, when she’s being restrained and hauled away by grimy, undead figures, she has cause to reassess her standing on what’s real and what isn’t. Lydia recruits Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to help save her daughter, knowing that bringing him back into her life comes with the added baggage of ruthless chaos. “Confronting the unknown, conquering your fears — there’s nothing harder,” she says.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice arrives in theaters nationwide on Sept. 6 and internationally beginning Sept. 4. The Beetlejuice sequel features Willem Dafoe as a ghost detective, Monica Bellucci as a vengeful ex-wife, and Danny DeVito in an undisclosed role. Justin Theroux, Burn Gorman, Arthur Conti, and Filipe Cates also appear.
“On Beetlejuice, I could tell every day what was gonna work and what wasn’t. And that was very invigorating. Especially when you’re doing something this extreme,” Burton told Rolling Stone in 1988, when the first Beetlejuice film was released. “A lot of people have ragged on the story of Beetlejuice, but when I read it, I thought, ‘Wow! This is sort of interesting. It’s very random. It doesn’t follow what I would consider the Spielberg story structure.’ I guess I have to watch it more, because I’m intrigued by things that are perverse. Like, I was intrigued that there was no story.”
