Michael Keaton returns to wreak havoc as Beetlejuice in the new trailer for the highly anticipated sequel about the mischievous ghost.

The long-awaited follow-up to the 1988 comedy, about a ghost who is recruited to help haunt a house, sees US filmmaker Tim Burton back in the director’s chair.

Titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel also sees Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz – while Wednesday star Jenna Ortega joins the family as newcomer Astrid Deetz.

The trailer opens with Ryder’s character Lydia warning viewers the preview is “intense” before the video cuts to the Deetz family standing around the graveside of the family patriarch Charles, who was played by Jeffrey Jones in the original movie.

After Lydia tells her daughter Astrid that “death is hard” while they sit in the graveyard, she replies “sometimes I think life is harder”.

Later Astrid can be seen finding out clues about the family’s past with Beetlejuice when she stumbles upon a mysterious model of the Winter Rive town in the attic.

Lydia can be heard telling her daughter that when she was a teenager, her family was “terrorised” by a “trickster demon” who tried to force her to marry him.

She warns Astrid not to say his name three times but the rebellious teenager defies her, summoning Beetlejuice.

The teaser video then flits through a host of clips of the Deetz family being confronted by ghouls after the portal to the afterlife is accidentally opened as Lydia says: “The living, the dead, can they co-exist? That’s what we’re here to find out.”

The trailer also sees Monica Bellucci, the off-screen partner of Burton, Willem Dafoe and Justin Theroux in their new roles for the sequel.

Later in the trailer, Lydia and Astrid can be seen running through a desert-looking space as they are chased by a giant snake-type creature.

Vanity Fair Post Oscars Party – Mortons Restaurant
Winona Ryder reprises her Beetlejuice role (Yui Mok/PA)

The original Beetlejuice film followed a dead couple attempting to haunt the Deetz family out of their new home with the assistance of eccentric ghost Beetlejuice.

Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis starred as the Maitlands while Jones, O’Hara and Ryder made up the Deetz family.

After its release, the film developed a cult following and later became a hit musical on Broadway.

The sequel was written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith, based on the characters from Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to be released in cinemas on September 6.