Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – The Afterlife Experience
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is currently on screen around the country, but if you live in Los Angeles and want to rub shoulders with the infamous bio-exorcist, hurry to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience inside the Ovation Hollywood. The live event provides an immersive excursion into the world of Beetlejuice and its sequel, where visitors can ride a sinister subway, visit a Sandworm Museum, interact with creepy characters, have their horror-scopes divined, take selfies on movie set recreations, and groove to a live rendition of “Day-o (The Banana Boat Song)” while enjoying spooky cocktails and food, before purchasing themed merchandise as they exit through the gift shop.
Altogether, it is a casual but extremely enjoyable experience that perfectly captures the vibe of the films – spooky but not scary – and provides more than enough fun to fill the one-hour time slots.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience Review: Immigrating to the Afterlife
Tucked with some extensive retail space on an upper floor at Ovation Hollywood. the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience begins almost as soon as you walk through the entrance, where attendants shuffle in the dark over black clad tables as they check you in. After that, knock three times on the brick wall, which will open, granting entrance to the immigration waiting room, where you can fill out your passport to the afterlife. You need not overthink your answers (where did you die, how will you spend eternity, who is the one historical person you would like to meet), but you will be quizzed on them, so be prepared.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience Review: Dinner, Drinks, and Hair Dye
After your card is punched, you will go through a one-way gate to the main section, which you are free to explore at your leisure. It’s a little bit like being inside a mini-theme park, with every sight and sound drawn from the Beetlejuice movies. The Afterlife Bar serves drinks named “The Juice is Loose Mai Tai” and “Spicy Sandworm Rita.” And the Afterlife Diner provides themed food in a location where the Juice himself may show up. The Brushed to Death salon provides real hair color for those who want to look more like Lydia Deetz.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience Review: Photo Ops
The first visible photo ops are Beetlejuice’s grave (where you can pose holding a shovel) and an oversized copy of The Handbook for the Recently Deceased; off in a corner, there is a booth to get snapshots for your passport. Also you want to step into Beetlejuice’s office and grab a shot of yourself sitting behind his desk or hanging out with Bob. That’s only if you can stand the sight of oversized roach beneath the filing cabinet.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience Review: Subways, Sandworms, Seances & Singing
The main attractions are the Afterlife Train Station, the Sandworm Museum, and the Horrorscopist. The subway doesn’t really go anywhere, but you can boogie to the beat of ’70s style music videos screening on the train’s walls. The Sandworm Museum has only a single exhibit, but it’s a magnificent specimen, and the mirrored walls make it seem like so much more; additionally, a curator will tell you all you want to know about sandworms – and more (they’re dangerous!). The Horrorscopist is the most extensive experience, in which Nadia (who “sees all”) gives comical group readings with insights and predictions that aren’t always pleasant.
The highlight of the evening is Beetlejuice, who pops in and out, interacting with guests and posing for photos. Eventually, he leads the other ghosts in a gusty rendition of “Day-o (The Banana Boat Song).” For a moment, everything else stops while the costumed characters find themselves forced to join in, and you will probably feel compelled to join in as well. Toward the end of the evening (at least on the occasion we visited), Beetlejuice closed the event with a conga line, leading the spirits into another realm of the greaty beyond, while those of us still mortal were left to exit through The Afterlife Souvenir Shop.
Review: Conclusion
So how good is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The After Life Experience? In truth, if you were simply walking around taking selfies, you could get through everything there is to see in five minutes, but that would be a mistake. The joy of the experience is hanging out with fans who dig the same stuff you do, recognize the references in the cocktail names, and want to get a blue streak in their hair because they are “strange and unusual.” Meanwhile, Miss Argentina, Nadia, and other afterlife characters are floating around the premises, eager to chat or sign an autograph; you might even find the museum curator, wearing a “live” sandworm on his arm, so that you can pet the not-so-friendly creature.
Basically, this is a delightful excursion into another world which allows you roam freely and spend your time as you see fit. There is plenty of time to see and do everything, but it’s not so much about doing things as being immersed in the afterlife and rubbing shoulders with whoever and whatever you meet. Just don’t leave before join in singing a chorus of “Day-O!”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience
Rating Scale
1 – Poor
2 – Mediocre
3 – Good
4 – Great
5 – Excellent
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience is great fun for the whole family – a perfect prologue to the Halloween season – spooky but not scary. Forcing guests to exit through the Afterlife Souvenirs shop is an obligatory marketing move on the part of Warners Events, but the merch on sale is pretty cool, and we’ll admit to heading home with a pair of Beetlejuice coffee mugs and a couple boxes afterlife hair dye (don’t ask).
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience runs on weekends and select weeknights from August 23 through October 6 November 3. Adult price starts at $25 for the 70-minute show, which is open to all ages (under 13 must be accompanied by an adult). The venue is the Ovation Hollywood, Suite 201 at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. Get more information here.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience is presented by Warner Bros. Events, which previously created live promotional events for such Warner Bros films as IT and IT: Chapter Two. Read our reviews of those events at the links below.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience Photographs
