The DMV-like waiting room into the afterlife, the casino-esque bulb-lit signs and lots of black-and-white stripes and checkerboards: All of the familiar Beetlejuice motifs are here at this Hollywood pop-up, one of the rare “immersive” events that’s actually worth your while.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience” brings recreated sets, photo ops and characters from the Tim Burton film into an 11,000-square-foot storefront on the second floor of Ovation Hollywood. The event launches just ahead of the release of the sequel, but if you’ve only ever seen—or culturally osmosed—the original 1988 horror comedy, there should be just enough here to keep you occupied.
You’ll start your macabre journey filling out a passport to the afterlife, which you can then get stamped at the lovingly crafted, chatty immigration window. (For what it’s worth, we’re usually not wild about semi-forced actor interactions in events like this, but the ones at “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” are oddly amusing and worth seeking out.) Once inside the larger experience, you’ll find a hub of activities: a sandworm whose teeth you can brush, a salon where you can get a ghostly makeover and a table where you can sit for an otherworldly reading, plus a handful of other photo ops. There are some snacks and boozy drinks for purchase, as well.
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The event, which comes from Warner Bros. Discovery Global Themed Entertainment and Fever, bills itself as a 70-minute attraction. If you plan on tackling all of the character interactions inside, that’s probably a pretty good estimate (during our media preview, there weren’t really any lines, so we can’t comment on any wait times). If you just want to zip through and snap some photos, though, expect to spend about half that amount of time.
If you can snag a $25 ticket (largely limited to weekdays late in the afternoon), we’d consider this a widely recommendable experience. But we’d narrow that to Burton or Beetlejuice obsessives if you can only swing a timed ticket to one of the peak periods, when prices approach $39.