Winona Ryder in the sequel by Tim Burton

There is an inventive sequence at the beginning of the unexpectedly delightful Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the Bee Gees' Tragedy, Monica Bellucci's soul-sucking demoness follows her chopped up body parts as they are retrieved from boxes in the Lost and Found of the afterlife, where she sews herself back together like a beautiful homemade Frankenstein monster. This scene also serves as a sign of kinship with the same actor's role as the Vampire Bride in Bram Stoker's Dracula; a tribute by Tim Burton to a major inspiration of Gothic literature; and a deliciously dark Valentine's Day greeting to the director's private partner of the last two years.

One of many inspired scenes in a clever sequel, peppered with hilarious nods to the 1988 original and amusingly eclectic pop culture references to everything from Carrie to Mario Bava, from Soul Train to Donna Summer: It's not the only time during the film that I scribbled “Tim Burton is back!” in my notes.

Any sequel that appears 36 years after its predecessor should be viewed with caution, especially given that, with the exception of the 2012 film, FrankenweenieBurton seemed to have lost his magic sometime around the turn of the century – at least to this critic.

By capturing the insanely playful spirit of one of his timeless hits from the golden era, the director seems reinvigorated. He also serves up a similar tonic for two actors who played major roles in more than just the original. Beetlejuice but also from Burton's Batman Films and Edward Scissorhands: Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder. The name in the credits of a second Batman Returns Alum is no secret, but this actor's droll extended cameo deserves the spoiler treatment.

Hollywood's cynical exploitation of successful intellectual properties in the pursuit of the everlasting franchise has taught us to be suspicious, so there's something refreshing for audiences too in seeing a revived big-screen production that's actually fun – not to mention has its own right to exist.

I was wide awake and knew I was in good hands when the spooky echo of Summer's disco cover “MacArthur Park” gave way to the first notes of a Danny Elfman score that starts out grim and gets more and more devilish as top cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos' camera glides through the sleepy town of Winter River and reaches the haunted hilltop house that the Deetz family lives in. Beetlejuice.

Warner Bros. has been trying to make a sequel since the early 1990s, especially after the studio hired Seth Grahame-Smith in 2011, who shares story credits with screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Burton's success in creating such a juicy sequel after so many years on ice is also thanks to the writers he worked with on Netflix's Wednesday. The star of this series, Jenna Ortega, is one of the welcome new additions to the crew consisting of Keaton, Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and shrunken-head Bob.

Ryder's Lydia Deetz still sports the jagged black bangs she wore as a goth teenager and is now a widowed mother famous for hosting a reality show called Haunted Housewhere, from a studio attic set, she invites viewers: “Come in if you dare.” Imitating the formula of countless paranormal shows, Lydia gets guests to share chilling experiences of unexplained phenomena in their homes. But a triggering vision of Keaton's Beetlejuice, sitting in the studio audience, reveals that the psychic mediator has not left her own tormenting past behind.

Lydia's relationship with her teenage daughter Astrid (Ortega) is strained. She resents her mother for spending more time with the dead than with her own daughter and resents her reluctance to talk about her late father Richard (Santiago Cabrera). He died in an accident in the Amazon, and while Astrid thinks her mother's supernatural insights are nonsense, she complains irritably that Richard is the only spirit she can't communicate with.

Tensions between Lydia and her stepmother Delia (O'Hara), an artist, have eased over the years, although the latter has become even more self-centered with her move from sculpture to mixed media. Her latest exhibition is called The human canvasand this canvas, of course, shows Delia's face and body.

The writers find a clever solution to the tricky question of what to do with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Jones, who played Lydia's father Charles. In a brisk claymation sequence that is typical of Burton, we learn of Charles' recent gruesome death – in the Beetlejuice In this world, death is a stopover rather than a destination, and the character remains even if its original physical form is erased.

Barbara and Adam Maitland, the sweet, young-deceased couple played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, are gone, however, because Lydia explains that they found a loophole. “How convenient,” Astrid quips, with a wink from the writers.

Charles's funeral — whimsically accompanied by a boys' choir singing an anthemic version of Harry Belafonte's “Day-O,” another fond memory — brings the family back to Winter River. They're accompanied by Lydia's producer and soon-to-be fiancé, Rory (Justin Theroux), whose ridiculous little ponytail exposes him as an imposter and whose “New Age, over-commitment, yoga-retreat bullshit” Astrid can no longer even despise.

Delia wraps the whole house in black gauze in Christo style and sets about turning her performative grief into a project entitled The art of mourningwhile Rory uses Charles' wake as the perfect time to propose to Lydia, who is so surprised that she accepts. Astrid's disgust drives her into town, where she meets Jeremy (Arthur Conti), a Dostoyevsky fan and cool analog guy. They arrange to meet on Halloween, when her mother's “witching hour” wedding is coming up.

While all this is happening, Bellucci's Delores terrorizes the underworld, killing denizens “dead-dead” on her mission to claim the corrupted soul of her husband Beetlejuice. In a hilarious touch that drew huge laughs at the Venice press screening, their short-lived ghost marriage is recapitulated as a black-and-white, subtitled Italian mini-movie. Delores' trail of destruction is investigated by Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a former TV action star who now plays detective, with plenty of cheesy glances at the camera for dramatic emphasis.

The living (or “meatbags,” as Jackson calls them) and the dead clash when Astrid is tricked into a potentially fatal pact and Lydia is forced to call Beetlejuice to help her cross over and save her daughter. Since Beetlejuice doesn't believe in free favors, an alternate wedding plan is hatched to save him from Delores, a nightmarish scenario in which Lydia's familiarity with the predatory sandworms of the afterlife's exiled desert comes in handy.

The rapid pace, bouncy energy and steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments suggest how much joy Burton obviously had in revisiting this world, and for anyone who loved the first film, that's infectious. The same goes for the actors, who all delight in the dizzying madness.

The double title might suggest that this is Keaton's show, and he gets plenty of opportunity to have fun – he looks as moldy and sloppy as ever, and the place is crawling with cockroaches – but he never crowds out anyone else in the strong ensemble.

Among his most exciting scenes is a cameo as a fraudulent couples counselor when Rory decides that Lydia needs to confront “this construct of your trauma.” (The hilarious birth of the devilish baby Beetlejuice during this scene brings out one of animatronics chief Neal Scanlan's most brilliant creations.)

If the use of Belafonte’s “Day-O” was a memorable highlight Beetlejuicewhat the filmmakers and Keaton do with “MacArthur Park” in a climax that feels like a wedding from hell goes a step further with the possessed backing tracks and dance moves. The wedding cake with “sweet green frosting pouring down” is a jubilant celebration of some of the dumbest lyrics ever put to music. And the fate of a gathering of cellphone-holding influencers that Rory has assembled in the church (“no less than 5 million followers”) will make anyone who has ever rolled their eyes at that “career path” happy.

Ryder is in no way inferior to Keaton and is the film's yin to its rancidly irreverent yang. The actress takes us back to the charming screen persona of her late teens, not only in Beetlejuice but also in films like Edward Scissorhands, Mermaids And Heatherwhere she exuded a unique blend of intelligence, sweetness and innocence, but was just as effective when she drifted into darkness. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a poignant mother-daughter story played with a lot of heart by both Ryder and Ortega.

Highlights of the film include Zambarloukos' dynamic visuals and Elfman's score, which has all the qualities of his collaboration with Burton, plus distinctive new touches. Another frequent collaborator, costume designer Colleen Atwood, does impressive work for characters on both sides of the mortality line, while production designer Mark Scruton has fun creating an entirely new network of antechambers, administrative offices and departure terminals for the afterlife.

The computer animation is undoubtedly extensive, but part of the sequel's charm lies in how much the sets, puppets and phantasmagorias seem hand-made, befitting the far more limited effects tools available in the late '80s. It's nice to have Burton back, fully in command of the humor, fantastical imagination and gleeful morbidity on which he built his name.