With the 2024 release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice many of us have been revisiting our love for the Ghost With The Most and now fans can ask the recently deceased for a little guidance with the Beetlejuice Tarot Deck & Guide from Insight Editions. This deck is beautifully illustrated by Hugo Award winning illustrator Abigail Larson who specializes in gothic fantasy illustration. With 78 unique full color designs fans can expect to see all of their favorite characters from the original 1998 film. Occasionally in conceptual decks the minor arcana gets left behind with rather simple designs repeating over the suits, but that is not the case here.
As a collector’s piece this deck is definitely worth picking up. Each card is an art piece and you’ll probably want to re-watch the film to make sure you are getting every reference. The art does not specifically follow the traditional Rider Waite Smith art, but the cards do evoke the same feelings and can be read using the same guides if those are your go-tos. I always run first to some of my favorite cards to get a feel for a new deck. For instance I love the 3 of Cups which tells you it’s time to get the gang together for a part. The 3 of Cups in this deck features the iconic dinner scene..but before it goes sideways due to Beetlejuice’s influence. Another favorite, The Fool, features the Maitlands on the precipice of engaging Beetlejuice’s services…which we all know ended up being a fool’s errand indeed!
The guidebook, written by frequent Insight Editions author Casey Gilly, is where this deck falls down a bit for me. Instead of being an actual book, it is more of a map style fold out. This makes it incredibly difficult to use if you need to look up every card in a spread. It is large and unruly and being printed on both sides makes it even more difficult to maneuver when checking the card meanings. While it does give a big of detail about the art on the cards, it lacks the space for Gilly lay out much information about either the art or the card meanings. I can see how some readers might prefer this to flipping pages in a book, but for me it feels cheap and like it could easily get destroyed if you were using it a lot. I don’t think it is enough to dissuade a fan from getting this deck. If you don’t care for the style of the guide there are, of course, plenty of resources to help with readings and the art on the cards does a good job of guiding the meanings. If this is your first deck I would recommend a secondary source as a guide to supplement this guide book.
As a Beetlejuice fan I am excited to have this deck in my arsenal. It is fun to read and the high quality of the cards and box mean it will hold up to years of use.
The Beetlejuice Tarot Deck & Guide is available for purchase wherever books are sold and you can get it directly from Insight Editions here.
