Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Giving us double the title with half the fun, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice proves its idea wasn’t worth resurrecting.

This belated sequel to director Tim Burton’s 1988 delightful horror-comedy suffers from some typical pitfalls in such scenarios — becoming a nostalgia-fueled rehash rather than breathing new life into its concept.

A new array of amusing macabre quirks and innovative creature designs keep this new installment endearing for a while. But when the focus shifts away from the, um, spirited title character, it tends to fall flat.

The new story primarily revolves around Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), who moved into a haunted house as a goth teenager in the prior installment, becoming a believer in links between the real world and the afterlife.

She’s now hosting a popular paranormal talk show while dealing with resentment from her own recalcitrant teenager, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). “People already know you’d rather spend time with ghosts than your own daughter,” she argues.

Lydia learns her father has died and her grieving mother (Catherine O’Hara) is selling the home. Plus, she’s reluctantly accepted an awkward marriage proposal from her producer (Justin Theroux). But what will become of the lifelike scale model of their town in the attic?

Of course, the manic deceased miscreant Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) has something to say about that, using his trickery — along with Astrid’s affinity for a Dostoyevsky-quoting classmate (Arthur Conti) with a dark secret — to lure the entire family into another elaborate scheme to salvage his own freedom at their expense.

The uneven screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (“Wednesday”) tosses out a bunch of thinly sketched subplots and character arcs that rarely come together.

There are some moments of inspired mischief along the way that recapture the magic of its predecessor, most notably an extended fantasy sequence that will leave you humming Donna Summer’s rendition of “MacArthur Park” just like the first film’s treatment of Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line.”

However, Burton’s follow-up struggles to bridge the narrative gap, despite the best efforts of a charismatic cast. Keaton, in particular, slides effortlessly back into his motormouthed shtick to again generate the biggest laughs.

Almost four decades later, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice makes a decent effort to embalm some old IP for another seasonal cinematic go-around. Yet it immerses us back in a goofy world that no longer seems as fresh or lively.

Rated PG-13, 104 minutes.