BEETLE JUICE
(2nd Draft)
by
Michael McDowell
based on a story by
Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson
A Pecos Production
For
The Geffen Company
1 June 1985
EXT: WINTER RIVER, CONNECTICUT -- DAY
A bucolic New England town, but rather too clean and neat to be
entirely real. There is no visible population.
Ominous, vibrating music.
On Main Street, a banner proclaims:
COME TO THE
INDEPENDENCE DAY PICNIC
ON THE GREEN
WINTER RIVER, CONNECTICUT
The camera, flying over downtown and several different
neighborhoods, sweeps over a rickety bridge crossing a rapidly
flowing stream, and then up a hill to a large old-fashioned
house. The house stands alone on this prominence, overlooking
the rest of the town. The camera lingers.
SUDDENLY A GIANT DADDY LONGLEGS SPIDER --
mounts the crest of the hill behind the house, pauses for a
moment, and then starts to climb over the Victorian house in a
very menacing manner.
ADAM (v.o.)
You're a big fellow.
A HAND --
perfectly stupendous -- reaches down out of the sky, lies flat,
palm up, in the yard next to the house, and the Daddy Longlegs
climbs into it. The hand rises into the sky again.
INT: ATTIC AND MINIATURE TOWN -- DAY
A new angle reveals Winter River as a miniature town, while the
Daddy Longlegs and the hand holding it are perfectly normal in
size. Above the model are a complicated mechanism of sun, moon,
clouds, and stars -- a whole, tiny mechanical universe to track
the hours of the day.
The hand belongs to ADAM MAITLAND, who is in his early forties,
solid-looking and easy-going. Frank Capra used to make movies
about him.
ADAM and the miniature town are in an attic room of a Victorian
house. The attic roof slopes on either side, and there are a
couple of windows, quite small and low down toward the floor at
either end of the long room. Almost the entire space is taken up
by the miniature town. A single door leads to a landing and
staircase to the lower part of the house.
ADAM carries the spider to the window, kneels on the floor, and
pushes open the window. The spider crawls away outside.
ADAM's POV --
The real Winter River lies spread out at the bottom of the hill.
BACK TO SCENE --
ADAM, whistling, goes back to the model. He takes a pair of
tweezers in which he grips an extremely small sign, whose
lettering is so tiny we can't make it out.
He reaches into the model and places the sign on the window of
MAITLAND'S APPLIANCE STORE on Main Street.
INSERT -- THE SIGN
It reads:
ADAM AND BARBARA
ARE
ON VACATION
HOORAY!
BACK TO SCENE --
ADAM
Hooray!
ADAM smiles down at the town as he's about to leave the room. He
turns off the lamp that acts as sun to the miniature Winter
River.
INT: THE HOUSE -- DAY
A tracking shot from the top of the Maitland's house to the
bottom.
ADAM leaves the attic room, and trips softly down the stairs,
humming a merry tune.
On the walls as he passes are photographs of himself and BARBARA
standing beside impossibly large and silly-looking appliances.
ADAM passes down the second floor hallway. The doors of the
rooms are open, and we pass the master bedroom, a sewing room, a
couple of guest rooms, bathrooms, and so-on. It's a big, old
rambling house, and it's decidedly old-fashioned, homely, and
comfortable. It also looks as if three generations of the same
family have lived in it.
Down the stairs into the living room, which is decorated in the
same fashion -- big console television, Barcalounger, a living
room set from 1961. Through the dining room, with homilies in
needlepoint on the wall: BLESS THIS HOUSE O LORD WE PRAY / MAKE
IT SAFE BY NIGHT AND DAY / BLESS THE FOLKS WHO DWELL WITHIN /
KEEP THEM SAFE FROM HARM AND SIN. Through the dining room door
and into the kitchen:
INT: KITCHEN -- DAY
ADAM's wife BARBARA is in the kitchen.
BARBARA has a kind of wholesome beauty that is mellowing well, as
she approaches middle age. There's a hint of unfulfillment in
BARBARA that gives her a little more of an edge than ADAM. We
will come to see that the only thing missing to complete the
Maitland's happiness is a child.
On the table in the center of the kitchen is a large cake about
three feet by two. BARBARA is decorating it to look just like
the American flag.
ADAM
It's the first day of
our vacation, and you
haven't been out of the
kitchen since five a.m.
BARBARA
(Proudly) I always make
the flag cake.
ADAM
Fifty stars, thirteen
stripes. Did you get it
right this year?
BARBARA thinks for a moment, during which pause there is the
SOUND OF A CAR DRIVING UP TO THE HOUSE.
BARBARA
I'll go see who that is.
You start counting.
BARBARA goes out of the kitchen into the dining room.
ADAM starts counting the stars by naming off the states.
ADAM
Maine. New Hampshire.
Vermont. Massachusetts
Connecticut.
EXT: FRONT OF THE HOUSE -- DAY
A bottle green Cadillac has pulled up in front of the house next
to the Maitland's station wagon. When the driver's door opens, a
well-dressed middle aged woman steps out, and starts resolutely
for the front steps of the house. (This is JANE BUTTERFIELD.)
INT: KITCHEN -- DAY
BARBARA comes back in.
ADAM
(Finishing with the stars)
They're all there.
BARBARA
It's Jane.
ADAM
Whose turn is it?
BARBARA's face falls.
BARBARA
It's mine.
ADAM's face lights up.
ADAM
I'm going to pick pears.
DOORBELL rings.
ADAM grabs up a basket by the back door and steps outside.
BARBARA
What do I tell her?
ADAM
What I told her last time.
And what you told her the time
before that. No.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
BARBARA opens the door. Outside on the porch stands JANE
BUTTERFIELD. JANE is a tall nervous woman, who looks as if she's
divorced three husbands and buried another for good measure.
She's ruthless but in her own weird way, quite pleasant.
BARBARA
Hello, Jane.
JANE
How are you, Barbara? How's
the flag cake coming? You
remembered the sugar this
year, didn't you?
BARBARA
Nobody ever forgets these
simple mistakes.
JANE
I'm selling lottery tickets.
Worthy cause. We're sending
the high school honor students
to New York for a few days.
Give them a taste of real
city life. How many do you
want? Ten, twenty?
BARBARA
What's the prize?
JANE
Your flag cake. That's why
I wanted to make sure you
got it right.
BARBARA
Adam and I will take just two
tickets. It wouldn't look good
if we won our own cake.
JANE
There's something else I want
to talk to you about.
(Beat) How would you like
to be rich beyond your wildest
dreams?
BARBARA
Jane, Adam and I are --
JANE
Don't tell me that you're
already rich in the things that
matter, because, believe me,
the things that matter are not
the things that really matter.
BARBARA
Last week we could get four
hundreds thousand for the house.
How much do you think we could
get for it this week?
JANE
Five. No question. This house is a
Property of Quality and Distinction.
EXT: ORCHARD -- DAY
Small pear and apple trees. The pears are bearing now, the apple
trees not yet. This is an idyllic setting -- but is is also
functional and modest.
Birds are singing in the trees.
ADAM is standing in the middle of the orchard, filling up his
basket with pears.
From the edge of the forest, a young deer peers out at ADAM, and
after a moment's hesitation, creeps out and into the orchard.
ADAM reaches forward with a pear, and the deer takes it out of
his hand.
At this moment, a lovable COLLIE runs up to ADAM, but stops short
when he catches sight of the deer. The COLLIE looks up at the
deer, and the deer looks down at the COLLIE.
The deer slowly turns off, back towards the forest.
ADAM
You watch out for those men
with the guns.
With the deer gone off, the COLLIE throws himself at ADAM's feet,
and rolls over on his back. Kicking off one of his Hush Puppies,
ADAM rubs the dog's belly with his stockinged foot.
JIMMY, the town paperboy, rides up on his bike, ducking under the
branches of the orchard trees.
JIMMY
Don't worry, Mr. Maitland.
Rocket won't bite.
ADAM
Catch, Jimmy.
He throws him a pear. JIMMY deftly snags it with one hand. In
return, JIMMY throws ADAM his paper.
ADAM
Go in the kitchen, Jimmy.
Your money's on the
counter. And don't
touch the icing on
Barbara's cake or she'll
skin you alive.
JIMMY drops his bicycle and goes in the back door of the house.
INT: KITCHEN -- DAY
The paper money is laid out on the counter, as promised, but so
is a plate of cookies and a tall glass of milk. JIMMY stuffs one
of the cookies in his mouth immediately, and then goes to study
the flag cake. He begins counting the stars.
JIMMY
Hawaii. Alaska. New Mexico.
Arizona. Wyoming. Oklahoma.
He stops for a moment, hearing the voices of JANE and BARBARA
through the dining room door.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
JANE is at the top of her pitch.
JANE
I'll put it in the Sunday
Times Magazine. Sell the
next day. Some lawyer from
New York will snap it up in
two minutes. You and Adam
will be able to retire. It
will be like a permanent
vacation.
BARBARA
The only reason we like va-
cations is that we get to stay
here in the house.
JIMMY walks in the door from the kitchen. He's carrying the
cookies and the milk.
JIMMY
Thank you for the cookies,
Mrs. Maitland. I counted
your stars and they're all
there. My mom bought ten
raffle tickets.
BARBARA
You're welcome, Jimmy. You
know Mrs. Butterfield, don't
you?
JANE, prompted by the appearance of the paperboy, delivers a
final salvo.
JANE
This house is so big. It
really ought to belong to
people who have children.
BARBARA gives her a sudden wounded look. Jane is immediately
remorseful.
JANE (cont)
I didn't mean that.
ADAM walks in from the kitchen with ROCKET.
ADAM
Give up, Jane. Barbara and
I are going to stay in this
house forever.
EXT: ROAD IN FRONT OF HOUSE -- DAY
JIMMY is racing down the hill on his bicycle, ROCKET bounding
after him.
At the bottom of the hill is a rickety bridge, spanning the
rapidly flowing Winter River.
JIMMY's bike goes BUMPITY-BUMPITY-BUMP across the uneven boards.
ROCKET, however, veers off the road in order to chase a squirrel.
JIMMY stops his bike in the middle of the bridge, and calls back
after ROCKET.
JIMMY
Rocket! Leave that squirrel
alone! Mr. Maitland would
skin you alive if he saw you
chasing his animals!
But ROCKET does not reappear, and JIMMY shrugs, and rides on
towards town.
EXT: FRONT OF HOUSE -- DAY
JANE comes out the front door of the house. She holds open the
front door, as ADAM and BARBARA come out with the flag cake
between them.
JANE goes out into the yard, and opens the rear of ADAM and
BARBARA's station wagon.
JANE
I'll see you at the picnic,
won't I?
ADAM
We haven't missed the town
picnic since --
He looks to BARBARA.
BARBARA
We've never missed it.
JANE starts to get into her car, but, glancing up at the house
and seeing it as a big fat commission, she gives it one more
shot.
JANE
Six hundred fifty thousand.
You could move to Maui.
ADAM and BARBARA wave, not even bothering to reply. JANE's car
takes off. Careful of the cake, ADAM shuts the rear door of
their station wagon. As they do, there comes into view a bumper
sticker: WARNING! I BRAKE FOR ANIMALS!
ADAM and BARBARA get into the car, and drive off.
Directly behind them, over the crest of the hills, comes a
hunter's van. A doe is tied to the open back.
INT: THE STATION WAGON -- DAY
Going down the hill, and towards the bridge.
ADAM is staring with disgust in the rearview mirror at the
hunters, who are tailgating them.
BARBARA, sitting close beside ADAM in the front street, does not
notice.
BARBARA
Don't use your brakes.
I'm worried about the cake.
ADAM
We're going downhill. I have
to use --
BARBARA screams and points.
ROCKET has just run out into the path of the car, and is staring
stupidly at the approaching vehicle.
ADAM applies brakes violently to avoid hitting ROCKET.
EXT: BRIDGE AND RIVER -- DAY
The hunters' van smashes into the back of ADAM and BARBARA's
station wagon, and sends it into the side of the rickety bridge.
It crashes through the railing and hovers a moment on the edge.
ROCKET has ambled slowly out of the way, unhurt.
The Hunters' van also screeches to a halt in the middle of the
bridge.
INT: THE CAR -- DAY
A piling has smashed through the window on the passenger side,
crushing the upper part of BARBARA's arm. She is wailing in pain
and fright.
ADAM attempts everything at once. He tries to help BARBARA. He
tries to get out of the car to save his own skin. He attempts to
maneuver the car onto the bridge again. None of this succeeds.
The car rocks back and forth a moment, and then slides forward
toward the river.
EXT: CAR AND BRIDGE -- DAY
The station wagon plunges into the rushing water. It floats for
a moment, and then sinks like a stone.
The hunters' van peels away from the scene of the accident. For
the first time we see an I LOVE NEW YORK bumper sticker on the
car, directly beneath the bloody head of the dead doe.
UNDERWATER --
The station wagon floats downward with panic-stricken ADAM and
BARBARA inside. For a moment we hear their screams, then as the
car fills up with water, the screams are cut off.
EXT: BRIDGE AND RIVER -- DAY
ROCKET is standing on the bridge staring into the water.
Bubbles of air come up from the bottom and break on the surface
of the water.
The bubbles stop.
ROCKET trots off in the direction of town.
FADE TO BLACK.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
INT: THE HOUSE -- TWILIGHT
NOISE OF A SLOW CLOCK TICKING.
One after another, we see the rooms of the Maitland house, still,
empty, dimly lighted. From the top of the house to the bottom.
The last room to be seen is the living room.
The clock stops ticking.
A moment of silence and stillness.
Suddenly and for no apparent reason the fire laid in the hearth
ignites and burns with a furious cheerfulness.
BARBARA and ADAM enter, dazed, wet and bedraggled.
BARBARA
What a wonderful start to
our vacation.
ADAM
You'll feel better when
you're dry.
ADAM leads her toward the fire. He holds out his hands to be
warmed. BARBARA comes up beside him. All this time she's been
holding her injured arm with the other hand.
BARBARA
This fire wasn't burning when
we left the house.
ADAM
How's your arm?
BARBARA
I'm not sure. It feels
frozen.
She holds her hands out to warm them.
BARBARA's LEFT ARM --
slowly slides out of her sleeve of her coat and plunges into the
fire.
ADAM and BARBARA stare at it dumbfoundedly before ADAM regains
his senses and snatches it out of the fire. Two of the fingers
are burning like candles, and BARBARA industriously blows them
out.
CUT TO:
INT: LIVING ROOM: A FEW MINUTES LATER
ADAM and BARBARA are sitting on the couch together. BARBARA is
looking away slightly -- as one does when a doctor is drawing
blood -- while ADAM tries to reattach her arm. He's a little
unsure of the procedure, since he's never had to do it before.
BARBARA
Do you remember how we got
out of the car?
ADAM gets up, a little absently, and wanders to the front door.
He peers out.
ADAM
I don't think we survived
that crash.
BARBARA tests her arm by turning it in the shoulder socket. She
clenches and unclenches her fist. They work fine.
BARBARA
Works.
ADAM opens the door and steps out onto the front porch.
EXT: FRONT PORCH -- TWILIGHT
A gorgeous sunset. ADAM's face is painted with the color. He
stands at the top of the steps leading down to the front yard.
BARBARA stands just inside the open threshold, looking out
worriedly.
ADAM
(Quiet sarcasm) The end
of a perfect day.
ADAM starts to step down to the yard.
BARBARA
But we can't be dead.
We're here!
ADAM steps off the last step into the yard and promptly
disappears.
BARBARA
Adam!
EXT: THE GREAT VOID
ADAM is nowhere. There's no ground, no sky, nothing to stand on
or hold onto or give boundaries or distance. Just vast nothing.
Not white and not colored either. Noise of a CLOCK TICKING.
ADAM looks about in surprise, and doesn't like what he doesn't
see. He turns right around to head back up the steps.
There are no steps.
ADAM
Barbara?
He runs off a little in the distance, and calls again from over
there.
ADAM
(Quietly) Where are you,
darling?
He goes even farther away.
IN THE FOREGROUND --
an enormous geared wheel -- the size of a man -- rolls by,
tearing up the unseamed ground. Something pours up out of the
tear -- ooze or stuffing.
ADAM runs forward and stares after the wheel, which is now out
of sight.
TWO SMALLER GEARS --
looking very much like components of a giant watch -- spin along
behind him. One of them veers suddenly towards him, and though
ADAM jumps out of the way, the gear snags his trouser leg and
shreds it.
A PERFECTLY ENORMOUS GEAR --
comes barrelling towards him. ADAM leaps out of its way. The
gear turns, fish-tailing, kicking up ooze and stuffing.
ADAM flings himself suddenly to the right, but trips into the
path of the gear. As he's about to be crushed, he's suddenly
jerked up to safety.
EXT: FRONT PORCH -- NIGHT
It's BARBARA who's grabbed him, and quite evidently saved his --
not life, perhaps -- but existence. He's shaken, breathless.
BARBARA stares at him, as if wondering what he's just been
through.
ADAM
(Weakly) You saved my --
uh -- something.
BARBARA
Two hours.
ADAM
What?
BARBARA
That's how long you were
gone.
Over WINTER RIVER, the Independence Day fireworks explode. ADAM
and BARBARA's faces are painted with the light.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
BARBARA leads ADAM into the house.
ADAM
Anything happen while I
was away?
BARBARA
I made a couple of small
discoveries.
She is standing in front of the mirror over the hearth mantel.
On the mantel is BARBARA's prized collection of porcelain horses.
ADAM comes to stand beside her. They look into the mirror, and
there is no reflection of them.
BARBARA picks up one of the horses, and trots it through the air.
The horse is imaged in the mirror.
BARBARA
There's that, and there's
this.
She points to a book that is sitting on the coffee-table. It's a
massive sheaf of indexed pages in a bureaucratic-looking binder.
It looks like this year's tax code.
CU: Its title is HANDBOOK FOR THE RECENTLY DECEASED.
BARBARA
I don't know where this
came from.
INT: BEDROOM -- NIGHT
ADAM is already in bed, reading from the Handbook. BARBARA is
walking about the room, getting ready for bed. It's evident that
they're going through a ritual of sorts that they practiced every
night of their married lives.
BARBARA
I don't like situations like
this. I hate it when I'm not
in control. So just tell me
the basics.
ADAM
What do you want to know?
BARBARA
There are a thousand things
we want to know. Is this a
punishment? Or is it a re-
ward? Are we halfway to
heaven or are we halfway
to hell? Why did you dis-
appear when you walked off
the front porch? And how long
is it going to last? That's
for starters.
ADAM
This book isn't arranged
that way.
INSERT: WARNING PAGE IN BOOK (as ADAM reads:)
ADAM (cont)
Warning. Proceed step by
step through this manual.
Do not begin on Section
Two until you have fully
mastered the concepts con-
tained in Section One.
BARBARA
Then start with Section One.
ADAM turns the page and reads aloud.
ADAM
(Reading) Section One.
Behavior at the Funeral.
Paragraph One. Lie very
still.
BARBARA
That's starting at the
beginning all right.
Anyway, we didn't have
a funeral... that I can
remember.
ADAM
I think I'm going to skip
ahead a few pages.
BARBARA is standing inside the open closet door. As ADAM talks,
she glances at her non-reflection in the mirror. She touches the
surface of the mirror, and her eyes go wide as her hand
penetrates the surface.
ADAM
This book reads like the Tax
Code. I don't see anything
about "Rewards and Punish-
ments" or "Heaven and Hell".
Wait, maybe this is something,
under "Geographical and Temporal
Perimeters." (Reading)
"Functional perimeters vary
from manifestation to mani-
festation." It really does
sound like the IRS had a
hand in this.
He looks up but BARBARA is nowhere to be seen in the room.
ADAM
Barbara! Where --
The closet door swings slowly open, so that the full-length
mirror inside the door is directly facing ADAM in bed.
But it's not ADAM who's reflected, holding the Handbook on top of
the covers, it's BARBARA.
ADAM
How did you get in there?
BARBARA
I walked through. It's
easy.
ADAM
What's it like?
INT: BEDROOM IN MIRROR -- NIGHT
The bedroom is reversed, but there are other things different
too. The room just fades out on the edges, and beyond is the
great void that ADAM was in earlier.
BARBARA begins to feel frightened. She peers at her side of the
mirror and sees ADAM in bed on the other side. The image is dark
and fading -- as if the door between the two worlds were closing
off.
BARBARA
It's --
The mirror grows darker.
On all sides of her, the walls of the room fade away entirely.
The room tilts, and the furniture slides away into the void.
At the last possible moment, BARBARA bolts through the mirror
back into the real world.
INT: THE REAL BEDROOM -- NIGHT
ADAM looks at his wife. BARBARA is shaken.
ADAM
The handbook discourages
that sort of experimentation.
Trans-dimensional insta-
bilities, whatever that
means.
BARBARA
I've got a pretty good
idea.
EXT: WINTER RIVER DOWNTOWN MAIN STREET -- DAY
Showing the appliance store, with a black wreath on top of the
GONE ON VACATION sign.
Across the street is JANE BUTTERFIELD'S REAL ESTATE AGENCY.
IN THE WINDOW OF THE REAL ESTATE AGENCY --
JANE is squeezed between the glass and a large cork board,
bearing the legend AVAILABLE PROPERTIES OF DISTINCTION. She is
putting up a new photograph of ADAM and BARBARA's house.
At the same time, she's talking into a telephone with a long
cord.
JANE
It came out of probate only
two days ago. This entire
house is replete with extras
and amenities sure to please
the discriminating buyer, such
as yourself. (Beat) I know
you'll love the place, Mrs.
Deetz. And so will your il-
lustrious husband and your
marvellous three -- two
children. (Beat) There is
a master bedroom suite con-
sisting of a bedroom of di-
mensions approximately fif-
teen by twenty-two feet, two
large walk-in closets with
full-length bevelled mirrors,
a third --
The fit in the window is so tight that JANE gets stuck. In
trying to get out, she slips and falls sideways, and is caught
even more securely in the twisted telephone cord. Two children
stand in front of the window passively watching her distress.
JANE
Help! Help!
INT: ATTIC AND MODEL TOWN -- DAY
The model town looks to be thriving. ADAM's obviously had plenty
of time for his hobby lately.
Right now, ADAM is setting up a small monument in the town
cemetery. It reads ADAM AND BARBARA MAITLAND / UNITED IN LIFE/
UNDIVIDED IN DEATH.
ADAM
Do you think this is
heaven?
BARBARA
In heaven there wouldn't
be stains on the wall-
paper.
ADAM
This is how I always
imagined heaven. Being in
this house. With you.
With time to do all the things
I never had time to do before.
INT: GUEST BEDROOM -- DAY
This is the bedroom with ADAM and BARBARA's wedding photograph in
it.
BARBARA stands leaning against the sill of the window, looking
out over distant Winter River.
ADAM comes in behind her.
ADAM
Cabin fever?
BARBARA
What?
ADAM
Do you feel trapped? We're
not allowed to leave the house.
BARBARA
No. I don't feel trapped.
I never imagined death would
be like this. I'm so happy.
Sometimes I just wonder how
long it's going to last. How
long we're going to be allowed
to stay here.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
BARBARA and ADAM are dancing to Artie Shaw. The Manual lies open
on the coffee table.
ADAM continues the conversation from upstairs.
ADAM
It'll take us at least a
hundred years to get through
that manual.
BARBARA
I don't know why you keep
trying. It hasn't told us
one useful thing yet.
ADAM
At least we know we're supposed
to stay away from shellfish.
They dance on for a minute, and then, while dancing, a thoughtful
expression creeps over ADAM's features.
BARBARA
What are you thinking about?
ADAM
I was just wondering who
bought the appliance store.
They stop dancing. The music stops as well.
A terrible thought has occurred to them both.
BARBARA
I wonder who's going to buy
this house. You know how
desperate Jane was to sell it.
ADAM
I guess we just have to hope
she sells it to someone nice.
AN OMINOUS RUMBLE --
like a 4.0 earthquake shakes the house. Glass rattles, the
ceramic horses on the mantelpiece jump around. BARBARA and ADAM
look at one another with misgiving.
The rumble builds to a climax, there is a loud metallic squeal,
and then a crash...
A MOVING VAN RAMP --
smashes open the front door and crashes down into the foyer.
BARBARA and ADAM --
half expect a division of Marines to storm down the ramp but
instead --
A TEN-FOOT ELECTRIC BLUE ITALIAN LEATHER COUCH --
slides smoothly down the ramp. On the couch sits DELIA DEETZ.
DELIA is relentlessly New York, relentlessly fashionable,
relentlessly thin -- a totally self-assured Joan Rivers.
She is also a woman with a mission -- to gut BARBARA and ADAM's
house and remake it in her own very upscale image.
DELIA's gaze is on the living room, but she looks through ADAM
and BARBARA as if they weren't even there (which to her eyes
they're not).
The couch crashes into the base of the staircase, smashing the
newell post and several of the balusters. One of the balusters
falls at Delia's side. She grasps it like a scepter.
Two MOVING MEN rush down the ramp.
MOVING MAN #1
Sorry about that, Mrs. Deetz.
DELIA
Don't worry. It was going
anyway.
Staggered by DELIA's grand entrance, BARBARA looks toward ADAM,
but he has disappeared. Flustered, BARBARA glances around the
room, shakes herself experimentally, then with a look of surprise
on her face that it works -- disappears herself.
Still holding the baluster, DELIA gets up off the couch and moves
into the living room, surveying it with an odd mixture of
ambition, contempt, and resolution.
Behind her, the two MOVING MEN bring in a matching blue leather
armchair. In the armchair sits LYDIA DEETZ.
LYDIA is the nec plus ultra of whatever is fashionable in
sixteen-year-old SoHo girls -- this week that makes her a DEATH
ROCKER. She's has on a black tunic emblazoned with alternating
rows of skulls and crucifixes. She's also wearing a hand grenade
baldolier and a necklace of human finger bones. Also around her
neck are a couple of very expensive cameras.
LYDIA is already taking photographs, not of the new house, but of
the moving men. LYDIA is cool, LYDIA is sullen, LYDIA is her
father's daughter by his first marriage.
The MOVING MEN still hold up the chair, waiting for DELIA to
decide where she wants it. LYDIA calmly surveys the house with a
cold eye.
LYDIA
We gave up sixty-five hundred
square feet of prime loft
space on Prince Street for
this?
DELIA
Shut up, Lydia. You're too
young to comprehend fluctuations
in the real estate market on a
nationwide or even regionwide
scale. This place was a
fucking steal.
DELIA signals wearily that the MOVING MEN can put the chair down
anywhere.
DELIA (cont)
Your first job is to get all
this other crap out of here.
LYDIA hops down out of the chair, and comes farther into the
living room.
LYDIA
Jesus. Who lived here? Norman
Rockwell?
DELIA
Where is Charles?
LYDIA
Checking out the kitchen.
That's the cue for CHARLES DEETZ, who comes in through the
swinging door, and across the dining room. He's holding a
butcher knife in one hand, and a massive meat cleaver in the
other.
CHARLES is not exactly the equivalent of his wife, being at heart
a basically pleasant man. But pleasant isn't in this year, and
CHARLES does his best to be off-handed and brittle.
CHARLES
Only things in the whole damn
kitchen worth saving. You
wouldn't believe the kind of
junk those people ate. I found
bottled Thousand Island in the
refrigerator. Hungry Man
Dinners in the freezer. A
whole case of Spam in the
pantry. They probably died
of gastronomic boredom.
At the front door, the fourth member of the DEETZ family climbs
over the moving ramp. This is CATHY DEETZ, nine years old. She
is dressed totally SoHo, but there's something off about the
outfit -- as if she's not quite comfortable with the look. She
gazes around the living room with obvious pleasure.
CATHY
A real house. It's totally
great. I can't believe it.
CHARLES
You really like this place,
don't you, honey?
CATHY
You bet.
LYDIA
You're such a weenie.
A VIOLENT FALSETTO SCREAM turns the DEETZ family's attention to
the front windows.
OTHO (o.s.)
HELP!
Caught in the window frame is a massive body, wedged at the
waist. The short, stubby legs, dressed in the world's largest
pair of Georgio Armani slacks, protrude into the living room,
waving frantically. A pair of expensive Italian loafers are
kicked off the feet revealing a pair of expensive patterned
socks.
By their feet shall ye know them.
DELIA
It's Otho.
CHARLES
Otho, why didn't you just come
in the door?
OTHO's voice as if from a great distance.
OTHO (o.s.)
It's bad luck.
CATHY
Hold your breath and we'll
pull.
With much concerted effort, the entire DEETZ family at last
manages to pull OTHO into the living room.
All this while the MOVING MEN are variously carting out the
handsome old furniture and bringing in the hideous new furniture.
OTHO is Robert Morley at his most obscenely fat and faggoty. But
he's not all fat and fun -- this customer carries emotional
weight as well.
As OTHO is pulled through the window he is holding onto the
curtains for support. And when he is at last all the way
through, and upright on his feet, he suddenly gives a tremendous
yank. The whole drapery apparatus, including valences, crashes
to the floor.
OTHO
That was the single most
unattractive window treatment
I have ever seen in the entire
of my existence.
DELIA
I'm so glad you could come,
Otho.
OTHO is looking around the room with an eye of quiet horror.
OTHO
Well, when you told me about
this place, I had an intuition.
Call it a hunch -- that it was
going to be a fabled monstrosity of
a house. And it certainly us.
Charles, you're going to have
to write two romances, a western,
and three of those wretched
detective novels to afford what
I'm going to have to do to this
place.
CHARLES
That's fine, Otho. I'm starting
work as soon as the word processors
get here. This country air. I'm
going to be able to write twelve
books a year instead of just eight.
I can feel it already -- plots.
Plots crowding in on every side of
me. Plots mean books, and books
mean money, and with money you buy
the things you haven't got. Like
fabulous houses, in fabulous, fabulous
Connecticut.
During this speech OTHO has been surreptitiously posing for
LYDIA's camera, while DELIA pokes about the room with disdain.
OTHO
Is the rest of the house as bad
as this?
DELIA
The rest of the house is worse.
When can you and I get started?
OTHO
No time like the present, as my
wicked stepmother used to say.
With an unexpected and dramatic sweep of his hand, OTHO sweeps
BARBARA's entire collection of ceramic and porcelain horses from
the mantelpiece. They all crash to the hearth -- except for two,
which CATHY dives to catch in either hand.
CATHY
Otho, that's terrible.
OTHO
My sentiments exactly.
He takes one of the porcelain horses out of CATHY's hand and
flings it into the fireplace.
CATHY manages to save one by hiding it in her pocket. CATHY
glances into the mantel mirror, and sees the reflection of
BARBARA, standing on the staircase, with a look of despair on her
face.
CATHY whirls around.
BARBARA is no longer there.
CATHY starts to say something, but she's pre-empted by OTHO.
OTHO
Delia, let's get this show
on the road.
Then out of the pockets of his size 56 Georgio Armani jacket,
OTHO takes two cans of spray paint -- the kind the graffiti
artists use -- and shakes them as if they were castanets. They
certainly sound like it.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY
At one end, near the stairs leading up to the attic, BARBARA and
ADAM are slumped against opposite walls.
ADAM
How did this happen? We didn't
even see Jane showing off the
house. And now it's already sold.
BARBARA
Remember when that damn manual
got us stuck in the chimney for
three days? That's when it
happened. (With vehemence that
surprises even BARBARA) God I
hate those people. That woman
wants to destroy my house.
ADAM
What can we do about it though?
We're ghosts.
BARBARA
(Adamant) Right. We're ghosts.
OTHO and DELIA appear, coming up the stairs at the opposite end
of the hallway.
OTHO
We're dealing with negative
entertainment potential here.
I mean there's absolutely
no flow-through.
They're rounded the bed, and OTHO looks down the hallway. It's
empty. ADAM and BARBARA are no longer there.
DELIA
What's wrong?
OTHO
I thought I saw something.
DELIA turns and spray-paints on the wall -- probably in luminous
orange -- the word ECRU.
DELIA
Okay?
OTHO
You read my mind. I love
clients who can read my mind.
I don't think people realize
how strong a connection there
is between interior decoration
and the supernatural.
DELIA and OTHO have reached the first door on the right. DELIA
opens the door and they step inside.
DELIA
This will be Lydia's room.
INT: LYDIA'S ROOM -- DAY
It's not LYDIA's room yet, of course, because it still has the
MAITLAND's furniture in it -- it's merely an old-fashioned and
little-used guest bedroom.
DELIA
What do you think?
OTHO
Viridian?
DELIA
Call it Graveyard Green
and she'll love it.
OTHO spray-paints the word VIRIDIAN on the wall -- right over a
wedding picture of ADAM and BARBARA.
Behind DELIA and OTHO, the room's closet door swings slowly open
with an ominous CREAK.
DELIA and OTHO turn that way, with a suggestion of dread.
BARBARA --
stands inside the closet. She grins a ghastly grin, grasps her
temples, and tears off her face, leaving nothing but muscle and
bone beneath. Her eyeballs dangle on her cheeks.
DELIA and OTHO stare aghast.
OTHO
Well, we just have to hope that
the other closets are bigger
than this one.
He walks over and slams the door in BARBARA's contorted face.
INT: HALLWAY -- SAME TIME
DELIA and OTHO come out of LYDIA's bedroom.
OTHO
This whole house smells so
dowdy. Whole lifetimes
of dowdiness. Generations
of dowdiness.
DELIA
The master bedroom suite.
DELIA opens a door on the opposite side of the hallway -- ADAM
and BARBARA's old room.
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- SAME TIME
The room looks as if BARBARA and ADAM left it just a few hours
ago. DELIA and OTHO poke around, the crassest of crass
intruders.
OTHO goes over to the closet door, and opens it -- but before he
actually looks inside, his attention is drawn back to DELIA.
DELIA
I was thinking of a pale
ochre.
OTHO picks up a porcelain figurine he finds particularly
offensive.
OTHO
I was thinking dynamite.
He tosses the figuring, then turns and looks in the closet.
We're expecting another apparition -- but it's just ADAM's
clothes. OTHO fingers the material with distaste.
OTHO (cont)
What happened to the people
who lived here before?
DELIA
They died.
OTHO
Yes of course, but how did
they die?
DELIA has gone over to the bathroom door, and pushed it wide
open. But before she goes in, she stops a moment to think.
DELIA
I think they drowned.
Behind DELIA, in the bathroom, the old-fashioned bathtub suddenly
overflows with vile water. ADAM's face-down bloated corpse bobs
to the surface, and then suddenly spills out onto the tiled
floor, flipping over to land face up. His head, drowned stare is
ghastly.
DELIA stares downward directly at the corpse, then she points at
it.
DELIA
Otho, I cannot live with
these tiles.
The bathroom is now empty. No water, no drowned corpse.
EXT: SIDE AND BACK OF HOUSE -- DAY
CATHY has come out the front door and has gone around the side of
the house, exploring her new home with wonder and delight.
She reaches the orchard at the back of the house. The pears are
no longer bearing, but the apples are now. She plucks one from
the trees and bites into it.
CATHY is suddenly pushed forward, nearly falling. Recovering
herself, she whirls around. She is staring into the face of
ADAM'S DEER.
For a moment, CATHY is startled and a little frightened. She's
not used to wildlife. Then she recovers.
CATHY
Oh. You're hungry.
She gives him her apple to eat.
A second-floor window is suddenly flung open at the back of the
house, and DELIA leans far out.
DELIA
RABIES! RABIES!
CATHY! RUN!
The DEER drops the apple from its mouth, and bolts back into the
forest.
CATHY stares after it.
INT: HALLWAY -- DAY
OTHO and DELIA comes out of another room.
OTHO
The new Silver Palate cookbook
has a wonderful recipe for
terrine of venison. (Wearily)
Is there much more of this?
DELIA
There's Cathy's room. But we
don't even have to look in
there. She'll love whatever
you do to it. She's such a
little sheep.
OTHO
Oh, as long as we're here...
OTHO reaches out and turns the knob on the third bedroom door.
The door swings ominously open on CATHY's room. This had been
BARBARA's sewing room, and is furnished accordingly -- straight
out of Better Homes and Gardens 1963.
There is a difference however because on the rag rug in the
middle of the floor lies the headless corpse of ADAM MAITLAND.
Standing over him, holding in one hand a long knife and in the
other ADAM's blood- and gore-dripping head, is BARBARA -- with a
maniacal look on her face.
OTHO
How ghastly.
DELIA
An honest-to-God sewing
room.
Inside the room, the eyes of ADAM's severed head open and look up
at BARBARA.
ADAM'S HEAD
They don't see us. They can't
hear us.
Outside, DELIA is shaking her head.
DELIA
The woman who lived here had
the aesthetic instincts of
Betty Crocker.
BARBARA
I'm going to get her.
DELIA
I cannot convey to you the
extent to which this house
bores me.
OTHO
I'm not so sure about that.
I think this place probably
has real atmosphere. Once you
get out all this tacky furniture,
strip off the wallpaper, take
down a few walls, enlarge the
first-floor windows, alter the
traffic patterns, re-do the
exterior, call in the landscapers,
and -- perhaps -- give some
thought to a solarium for
rare cacti -- once you do all
that, the place might just be
livable. Isn't there a third
floor?
DELIA
Attic space.
OTHO
Let's see. Maybe we could turn
it into a media room.
They head up the stairs to the attic.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- SAME TIME
ADAM'S HEAD has a look of terror on it.
ADAM'S HEAD
Oh God. I forgot to lock
the attic door.
ADAM's headless body jumps up off the floor and rushes out of the
room.
INT: STAIRCASE TO THE ATTIC -- SAME TIME
OTHO and DELIA climbing. The headless corpse rushes past them,
around the bend in the stairs and out of sight.
DELIA
Did you feel something?
OTHO
I felt something cold.
INT: LANDING OUTSIDE ATTIC DOOR -- SAME TIME
The headless corpse rushes through the open door into the attic.
INT: ATTIC LANDING -- SAME TIME
DELIA tries the knob. The door is locked.
OTHO
You don't have a key?
DELIA
Maybe Charles does.
OTHO
I have a feeling there's
something interesting behind
this door.
INT: CATHY'S BEDROOM -- SAME TIME
BARBARA still holding ADAM'S HEAD.
ADAM'S HEAD
Whew! That was close. (Sighs)
What's the use of tearing your
head off in front of people if
they can't see you?
BARBARA
I can't live with this.
ADAM
We have to. We're dead.
BARBARA
I'm getting out of here.
She puts down his head on an end table and storms out.
ADAM
Barbara, where are you
going?
INT: KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER
BARBARA storms in, straight from the room upstairs. She heads
straight for the back door. Just as she reaches for the door,
ADAM comes in -- putting his head back on.
ADAM
Don't go out there. We don't
know --
BARBARA
I can't stay inside this house
a minute more. Not one minute.
She flings open the door and steps outside. She promptly
disappears.
ADAM
Barbara!
EXT: THE SURFACE OF SATURN'S MOON TITAN
BARBARA is on Titan with an enormous Saturn looming in the sky.
She looks around with wonder and some fear.
A sulfur volcano erupts in the distance.
A meteor crashes with a lurid explosion.
As from a great distance she hears ADAM's voice.
ADAM
Barbara!
She turns slowly in the dense sand that covers the surface of
this distant moon.
BARBARA'S POV --
ADAM is struggling towards her. Behind him, hovering isolated in
the air, is the kitchen door.
BACK TO SCENE --
ADAM at last catches up to her.
Behind them, something is burrowing rapidly towards them through
the sand. The Something looks as if it might be right out of
DUNE.
BARBARA and ADAM watch for a moment, and then realize that it
just might be a very fine idea if they got the hell out of there.
They turn and run towards the kitchen door.
The kitchen door has moved, but they veer in the new direction.
The Something gets right up to them and rises out of the sand.
Whatever it is is very big, very nasty, and very hungry.
ADAM and BARBARA slip and sink in the sand as they are pursued by
THE BEAST. They make it through the door just in time, swing it
open and hurl themselves through.
The door shuts with a bang.
The BEAST roars and roars in frustration, howling to the ringed
planet.
INT: THE KITCHEN -- DAY
The kitchen is very much as it was when ADAM and BARBARA were
alive, and boy it sure feels good after a stint on Titan.
BARBARA, weeping, throws herself in ADAM's arms.
ADAM
It's okay, kiddo. This house
may not be heaven for us any
more, but at least it isn't
hell.
As if demolishing ADAM's assurances, a 2500-pound, gleaming, six-
burner, double-oven Vulcan stove crashes through the breakfast
nook windows, and drops into place.
Outside can be seen the truck and crane which delivered this
monstrous piece of culinary extravagance.
BARBARA and ADAM duck out of its path, stumbling into the dining
room.
INT: DINING ROOM -- DAY
Where they are greeted with hot blasts of noisy steam from the
guns of the WALLAPAPER REMOVERS, dressed in satanic red
jumpsuits, wearing Walkmans that resemble horns.
BARBARA and ADAM stumble through to the living room, where --
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
-- they are bombarded with plaster splinters and dust, and the
ear-shattering noise of drills, hammers, and electric saws,
carving up the ceiling to make room for DELIA's water clock
(which we'll see later).
Aghast, BARBARA and ADAM flee up the stairs to the second floor.
AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS --
A six-foot diameter spool of cable comes barrelling down towards
them, in a parody of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. They rush back
down the stairs, and then, without knowing how they accomplish
it, ADAM and BARBARA make a deft and ghostly hurdle over it to
the second floor landing.
INT: SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY -- DAY
They're not out of this SoHo hades yet.
As they make their way down the hallway, they run the gauntlet
past every open door. Outside LYDIA's room, ADAM and BARBARA
pause and glance in the open door, looking for refuge. A HUNDRED
AND TWENTY DECIBELS OF EAR-SHATTERING DEATH ROCK send them on
down the hall, where next they are driven against the wall by a
JET STREAM of hot water -- the plumbers' error in the bathroom.
With the plumbers' curses ringing in their ears, they try to
hurry on towards the attic stairway.
But just as they pass the doorway of the master bedroom, a six-
foot chest of drawers sails out on caster wheels, separating
them, plowing on through the open doorway opposite, and smashing
through the window. A moment later we hear its SPLINTERING CRASH
on the ground outside.
BARBARA
That's been in my family
two hundred years.
ADAM drags her on.
Just outside the door of CHARLES's study, when they have nearly
reached their goal (the second flight of stairs to the attic), a
shower of electrical sparks and a loud crackling pour over them,
from an ELECTRICIAN rewiring for CHARLES's computers.
ADAM's entire body is briefly outlined in the electrical storm.
This quickly subsides, except for a remaining charge on his hand.
BARBARA tries to beat out this painful electrocution, while ADAM
jumps around in evident pain.
When at last the charge dissipates, ADAM finds that his hand is
black and smoking.
ADAM and BARBARA rush up the stairs to the attic, and throw
themselves through the door into their sole refuge.
INT: ATTIC -- DAY
ADAM and BARBARA.
ADAM
Barbara, we're trapped in
this house forever.
EXT: FRONT YARD -- DAY
The entire front yard is filled with trucks and vans and
automobiles. These include vehicles and representatives of the
telehone company, the television cable company, plumbers,
electricians, kitchen supply houses, computer supply services,
Goodwill and St Vincent DePaul, and whatever else there might be.
In the road in front of the house are several cars of
rubbernecking locals, astonished by all the activity. The City
has come to Town.
We see these small vignettes, and perhaps others as well.
Moving men going in with very modern and expensive furniture,
colliding with the charity men coming out with ADAM and BARBARA's
furniture and personal belongings.
CHARLES in deep conversation with several men who stand with long
lengths of cable draped over their shoulders. He is distracted
by a large crane on the side of the house which is trying to get
a stainless-steel refrigerator -- even larger than the Vulcan
stove -- through the broken breakfast nook window.
DELIA is standing at the door of the barn/garage, directing half
a dozen fine art movers in the placement of her gallery of
sculptures. These are colossal, nightmarish images constructed
in an improbably combination of welded steel and feathers.
LYDIA is under everybody's feet, relentlessly photographing the
operation.
CATHY is simply standing out of the way, as if frightened of
being trampled.
CATHY'S POV --
She looks at the whole house from the bottom to the top. And
when she reaches the top, she sees BARBARA and ADAM's faces in
the window.
BACK TO SCENE --
CATHY blinks hard. Her mouth drops open. She looks all around
-- as if she'd just seen a ghost or two.
JANE BUTTERFIELD's car pulls up, and JANE gets out. She surveys
the whole business, and looks pleasantly impressed. She waves to
CHARLES but he doesn't see her. Then JANE catches sight of CATHY
and comes over, squeezing between two vans.
JANE
Boy, when you city people
do something, you do it
right, don't you?
CATHY
Did you know the people who
used to live here?
JANE
They were my best friends in
the whole world. I know they
would have been pleased to
know it was your family
who brought their house.
JANE hands a key to the CATHY.
JANE (cont)
Here, darling.
CATHY
What is this?
JANE
It's a key to the attic. Your
father asked me to drop it by.
Actually it's not a key to the
attic, but it's a skeleton key.
It'll open any door in the world.
Will you give it to your father?
And tell him if I can do anything
else, just call.
JANE goes back towards her car. After a few steps, she looks
back.
JANE
You're going to be very happy
here. I can see it in your
face.
CATHY smiles back, and then her face turns serious as she looks
back up at the attic windows.
CATHY'S POV --
Nothing -- and no one -- there.
BACK TO SCENE --
CATHY is startled by a voice -- LYDIA's.
LYDIA
Hey!
LYDIA snaps a picture of CATHY.
LYDIA (cont)
You look dazed.
CATHY
The sun was in my eyes.
CATHY surreptitiously slips the skeleton key into her pocket.
LYDIA
Delia says Move Your Ass.
Everybody's got to help today.
CATHY looks up. DELIA is impatiently waving her over to the
barn. More sculpture -- worse than before -- is being carted
inside.
INT: ATTIC -- DAY
ADAM and BARBARA are lying on the floor, looking out of the
window at all that is going on.
BARBARA
That little girl saw us.
ADAM
She couldn't have. We can't
make them see us.
BARBARA
But she saw us. I know.
I could feel it. I thought
she saw me this morning, too.
(Beat) How's your hand?
ADAM
Already healed.
INT: BARN/GARAGE -- DAY
The Fine Arts movers are going to it. DELIA in the midst of
everything, berating CATHY.
DELIA
Buckle down, Cathy. This is
Life. And be a perfect
darling, and go get mommy
some drugs.
CATHY
Any particular kind?
DELIA
It doesn't matter. Just remember
though, too many is better than
too few. And a glass of Perrier,
one cube.
CATHY takes her marching orders and goes off towards the house.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DAY
A BLAST OF STEAM --
fills the hallway, because WORKMEN are going at the wallpaper
here, too. CATHY emerges from it.
All the doors are open, with MOVING MEN and WORKMEN in every
room.
Down at the end of the hall stands CHARLES, directing WORKMEN who
are carrying computer components into the room that will be his
study.
CATHY starts to go into the bathroom -- to get her mother's drugs
-- but there are at least three PLUMBERS in there, and the whole
place is torn apart.
CATHY continues down the hall.
CHARLES sees her.
CHARLES
Where is your sister? She
could be a little help around
here.
CATHY
In her room?
LYDIA's door is the only one closed. CHARLES goes over and
without knocking, flings open the door.
INT: LYDIA'S ROOM -- DAY
On LYDIA's bed is a very muscular MOVING MAN, clad only in
jockey shorts. LYDIA is moving quickly all around the bed,
taking rapid-fire photographs of him.
CHARLES
Lydia, moving day is no time
to make one more attempt at
losing your virginity.
LYDIA
I have a concept for a moving
man calendar.
CHARLES
I want you and Cathy --
As the MOVING MAN gets up from the bed, nonchalantly reaching for
his trousers, CHARLES looks around for CATHY. She's no longer
there.
CHARLES (cont)
Now I've lost her.
INT: STAIRCASE TO ATTIC -- DAY
CATHY creeps upward, taking the skeleton key from her pocket.
She stops momentarily when she hears her father's voice.
CHARLES (o.s.)
Cathy! Cathy!
Then when that voice is covered by other sounds of the moving,
CATHY continues upward.
INT: ATTIC LANDING
CATHY quietly inserts the key in the lock of the attic door. She
turns it. The key is stiff. She turns harder. It's stuck.
CATHY tries the door -- it's no go. She turns the key again.
This time it goes all the way around. CATHY grins. Then she
puts her hand on the knob and tries to turn it. It's stuck.
Then the key pops out of the lock and falls to the floor.
CHARLES's head suddenly appears behind her.
CHARLES
What are you doing?
INT: ATTIC
ADAM is holding on tight to the knob of the door. With an awl
(or some similar object) BARBARA has poked the key out. The two
stand absolutely still, listening, terrified of the living
intruders -- pretty unseemly behavior for a pair of honest-to-
goodness ghosts.
INT: ATTIC LANDING
CATHY and CHARLES.
CATHY
I was just trying to open the
door. Mrs. Butterfield brought
over a skeleton key. But it
doesn't work.
She hands her father the key. He waves it away.
CHARLES
Skeleton keys never work.
Now, hop to it, Cathy, your
mother wants her drugs. And
we're all going to feel better
if she gets them.
He starts down the stairs, and Cathy starts to follow.
INT: ATTIC ROOM
ADAM and BARBARA, having heard this, pull back from the door in
relief. But that relief is short-lived, for at that moment, the
door swings open of its own accord.
Right outside on the landing, they see CATHY's back as she's
starting down the stairs.
CATHY turns at the sound of the opening door.
ADAM and BARBARA disappear.
REVERSE ANGLE --
CATHY looks into the attic room, and sees the model town.
She enters very quietly, looking around.
The room is dim, and filled with dust motes. There are shadows
in all the corners.
The first thing she sees, of course, is the model town. She's
entranced. She peers at it from different angles, and is
dumbfounded with pleasure, her fear forgotten. She continues to
walk about the model, oblivious to everything else.
IN THE MODEL --
BARBARA and ADAM are hiding in the doorway of their appliance
store on MAIN STREET. They look up at CATHY's enormous face
peering down at them.
They see CATHY stop, her gaze focused on them.
CATHY'S ENORMOUS HAND --
reaches down out of the sky towards them.
ADAM
Barbara. Stand very still.
BACK TO SCENE --
CATHY is reaching down into the model. She picks up the BARBARA
figure out of the model. BARBARA does her best imitation of a
wooden Indian. CATHY peers at her very closely.
BARBARA'S POV --
A close-up of CATHY's eye. She sees herself reflected.
BACK TO SCENE --
CATHY puts BARBARA down in the street, and picks up ADAM. ADAM
has plastered a weird smile on his face.
IN THE MODEL --
BARBARA stands in the middle of the street, pretending to be
carved of wood, but she's looking up at CATHY holding ADAM.
BARBARA
(Under her breath) Don't
hurt him, little girl. Please
don't hurt my husband.
CATHY puts ADAM down in the street, but not very near BARBARA.
He doesn't quite have his balance and tips over, falling flat on
his face. CATHY conscientiously rights him.
Despite her fear of being overheard by CATHY, BARBARA calls out
in a hiss.
BARBARA
Are you all right?
ADAM
No. Yes.
BACK TO SCENE --
CATHY continues around the model. She finds a button on the side
of the table on which the model rests, and presses it. The
artificial sun comes on, and bathes the model of Winter River in
sunlight. Then...
A LOUD CRASH --
behind CATHY. She whirls around, barely stifling a scream,
confronting only a push broom that she has brushed from its hook
on the wall.
In recovering from this false scare, she kicks something. She
ducks under the table and comes up with the manual.
She holds the cover up to the light.
CATHY
"Handbook for the Recently
Deceased."
She looks into the model again at the figures of ADAM and
BARBARA. They're now standing together.
CATHY
(Hums the 'Twilight Zone'
theme music)
She looks around the room as if suddenly someone were going to be
there to answer all her questions. No one is.
A voice sounds from downstairs.
LYDIA (v.o.)
Cathy, Delia needs you!
CATHY gives one more look at the town, and then goes to the door
quickly and silently.
LYDIA (v.o.)
Right now!
CATHY finds the real key to the room in the door, on the inside.
She takes it out of the lock.
INT: ATTIC LANDING -- DAY
CATHY locks the door quickly, tries the knob to make sure, and
hurries downstairs.
INT: SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY -- DAY
DELIA stands outside the master bedroom door, arms akimbo. At
her feet is a large box of ADAM and BARBARA's personal
belongings.
DELIA
Where have you been?
CATHY
Nowhere.
CHARLES comes out of his room, tossing out empty boxes.
CHARLES
Hiding out in the attic.
Did you get that door open?
CATHY
(Hesitating) Skeleton keys
never work.
DELIA
Take this downstairs. Dump
it.
She kicks the box with ADAM and BARBARA's belongings. DELIA and
CHARLES disappear again.
CATHY lifts the box, and starts downstairs with it. Then she
stops dead still.
At the top of the box is ADAM and BARBARA's wedding picture, with
a swath of spray paint over it, obscuring their faces.
CATHY puts down the box, takes out the picture, and removes the
photograph from the frame.
CU: BARBARA AND ADAM IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
CATHY
I knew it.
She slides the photograph under the door of her room, and then
continues downstairs with the box.
EXT: HOUSE -- NIGHT
Dark, quiet, a light burning in the dining room window.
INT: DINING ROOM -- NIGHT
The DEETZs around the dining room table. There are candles, good
china laid out -- but they're eating out of Chinese take-out
boxes.
CHARLES, DELIA, and LYDIA are eating with chopsticks, while CATHY
uses a plain old American fork.
LYDIA
I can't believe that we're
eating Cantonese.
CHARLES
There's only one Chinese
restaurant in town, darling,
and it happens to be Cantonese.
LYDIA
I could have a stroke from the
amount of MSG that's in this
food.
DELIA
This is our first meal in this
house, Lydia. Why don't we all
do our little parts to make it
a pleasant one?
CHARLES
I'm building you a darkroom in
the basement. Nobody's ever
going to steal your chemicals
again. That'll be a pleasant
change from Manhattan.
LYDIA
I should have stayed in New York
with my mother. Just driving
through Winter River made me want
to slit my throat.
CHARLES
We're the first trickle. In a
couple of years this whole town
will be filled with people like
us. Zabar's will open a Winter
River branch.
DELIA
And when Otho and I get through
with this house, you people are
not going to recognize it as the
same place.
CATHY
(Meekly) I sort of like it the
way it is.
The family stares at her, unbelieving.
CATHY (cont)
I mean, it's already sort of like
somebody's home, isn't it?
There is a pause, as if the family were considering this whole
business in a new light. Then the moment and the light fade.
CHARLES
You know, I went in the grocery
store today, and they had never
even heard of arugula.
INT: ATTIC -- NIGHT
ADAM and BARBARA are pissed.
ADAM is looking through the manual, while BARBARA paces looking
over his shoulder now and then.
BARBARA
Ghosts have been scaring people
for thousands of years. It
must say something about haunting.
ADAM
That electricity hurt. I don't
want to have to think about that
kind of thing happening to you.
BARBARA
I think I'd rather have a
band of gypsies move in here
than have to put up with those
people. And we don't even know
how long we're supposed to stay
here? I wish that book would tell
us something useful.
A GUST OF WIND --
blows down the chimney, turning the pages of the manual.
BARBARA and ADAM shiver with sudden, supernatural cold.
ADAM looks at the book.
ADAM
(Reading) Section Seventeen-C.
Intercessions and Exorcisms.
BARBARA
Exorcism. That's where they
get rid of us, right?
ADAM
Not this kind. This is where
we get rid of them.
BARBARA
What do we have to do?
ADAM
It won't work. We need a
graveyard.
BARBARA
And we can't leave the house.
The MOON over the model town comes on suddenly.
ADAM and BARBARA's gaze follows the directed beams of this moon,
as it shines down into the MODEL GRAVEYARD.
EXT: MODEL GRAVEYARD -- NIGHT
With shovels and lanterns, BARBARA and ADAM are a very unlikely
pair of graverobbers. ADAM is reading the manual by lanternlight.
The mechanized clouds in the sky move across the mechanical moon,
throwing shadows everywhere. There is also ground fog.
ADAM
The manual says look for a
grave marked Swallowtail.
BARBARA
Nobody with that name
was ever buried in this
town.
They pass a small mouldering tomnbstone, askew, half-buried in
the ground, the mound before it covered with rotting white roses.
On the tomb is carved the name BETELGEUSE.
ADAM
Yeah, but nobody was
ever buried with that
name either.
He tries to pronounce the name, but it comes out something like
ADAM (cont)
Bettle - gooser.
On a wind suddenly blowing through the trees we hear the
ominously whispered pronunciation:
VOICE
Beetle Juice.
BARBARA
Beetle Juice.
Moving on, looking around other parts of the graveyard, ADAM and
BARBARA next come to a large, white marble monument crowned by
the Angel Gabriel blowing his horn. Carved on the monument is
the name SWALLOWTAIL. Beneath it is the legend, HOPE FOR THE
HOPELESS.
BARBARA
Do we dig?
ADAM
Well, yes, but it says
we have to chant too.
BARBARA
Chant what?
He turns the page in the book.
ADAM
I don't think it says.
Some sort of music I
guess.
BARBARA
That stupid book. All
right. But you start.
They stand over the grave, with spades poised. ADAM thinks for a
moment and then, as he turns the first spadeful of foetid earth,
he sings
ADAM
"I've got rhythm...
I've got music..."
BARBARA takes it up:
BARBARA
"I've got my man..."
ADAM & BARBARA
"Who could ask for anything more..."
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT: MODEL GRAVEYARD -- NIGHT
Sometime later. The grave is now nearly six feet deep, and ADAM
and BARBARA are invisible inside. We see the glint of the moon
on their shovel blades, and we hear them singing. By this time
ADAM and BARBARA have really gotten into it, and they're
performing a rousing, syncopated version of "I've Got Rhythm" as
the earth flies.
-- INSIDE THE GRAVE
ADAM suddenly hits wood.
BARBARA
It's about time.
They lean down and brush dirt off the face of the coffin.
There's a brass plate that reads SWALLOWTAIL.
ADAM
I guess we open it.
Right?
BARBARA and ADAM feel a slight tremor beneath their feet.
BARBARA
It seems to be opening
itself.
BARBARA and ADAM exchange glances, and then start clawing the
sides of the grave in an effort to escape.
-- BACK ON GROUND LEVEL
ADAM pushes BARBARA out, as the ground rumbles and we hear the
splintering of rotten wood. BARBARA helps ADAM out of the grave.
They have just risen to their feet, when a MOULDERING CORPSE
springs out of the grave, and jumps onto BARBARA's back, and
tries to implant a very large kiss on her lips.
ADAM pulls the corpse off BARBARA's back, and the MOULDERING
CORPSE does a Three Stooges hammer to Adam's head.
ADAM staggers backwards. The MOULDERING CORPSE, now between ADAM
and BARBARA, grins insanely at them both, and then flies high
into the air above their heads.
They turn to see where he has gone, and realize that the
MOULDERING CORPSE is merely a jack-in-the-box marionette on a
string and pole apparatus.
The pole is held by BEETLE JUICE. He is small and wiry, dark,
with vaguely Middle-Eastern features. Here, and whenever we see
him again at the beginning of a scene, his eyes are COLD and
YELLOW and SHAPED LIKE A SNAKE'S -- but after a moment, they
melt, becoming human, and liquid, and brown. This is definitely
not a spirit to be trusted.
BEETLE JUICE drops the pole and puppet, takes a long step forward
and produces a deck of cards.
BEETLE JUICE
Never mind him. Pick a
card.
Stunned, BARBARA and ADAM do as they're told.
ADAM holds up his card. It's the tarot card for death.
BEETLE JUICE
Death.
BARBARA holds up her card. It's the tarot card of the Falling
Tower.
BEETLE JUICE
Destruction.
BARBARA glances up at the statue of the Angel Gabriel.
BARBARA
Are you Swallowtail?
BEETLE JUICE
He's all tied up. I'm
his second-in-command.
The name is Beetle Juice.
Come on. Let's talk.
He gives an arm to BARBARA and ADAM, and leads them out of the
graveyard.
As they depart, we see the figure of SWALLOWTAIL -- exactly like
the statue of Angel Gabriel -- bound and gagged and out of sight
behind his monument. He stares after the retreating figures of
BARBARA and ADAM with pity -- he's got a pretty good idea of
what's coming.
EXT: MODEL TOWN MAIN STREET -- NIGHT
BEETLE JUICE has an arm around the shoulders of ADAM and BARBARA.
Main Street is quiet and deserted, of course.
BEETLE JUICE
All right, you guys need
help. And help is why I'm
here. Who do I gotta kill?
ADAM
You don't kill anybody.
BARBARA
All we want is for you to
get some people out of our
house.
BEETLE JUICE
Exorcism, right. I love
exorcisms. So who are these
people you want to get rid of?
BARBARA
The Deetzes.
BEETLE JUICE
Family, right? Mommie,
daddy, they got kids?
ADAM
Two daughters. One's
about ten, one's about
sixteen, except she acts
like she's thirty-five.
BEETLE JUICE
Oh yeah? How does
she feel about short, older
men?
BARBARA gives BEETLE JUICE the fish eye.
BARBARA
I don't appreciate that kind
of talk.
BEETLE JUICE
Idle curiosity. So here's
the story. You're dead, and
you're stuck in this dump
for a hundred and thirty-
two years --
BARBARA
That's how long we're
going to be here? How do
you know?
BEETLE JUICE
How do I know, guys? It's
my business to know. Anyway,
so you're stuck in this dump
...
ADAM
It's not a dump.
BEETLE JUICE
... and you want it all to
yourselves. And even though
these live guys have paid their
hard earned money for the home
of the dreams, you dead guys
are gonna drive 'em out in
the cold, mommy, daddy, and
two little girls, one of whom
probably wouldn't say no to
a shorter, older man.
BARBARA
The Deetzes are destroying
our house.
BEETLE JUICE
Right. And I'm here to help
you.
The trio pass the appliance store. The large plate glass window
bears the legend: GENERAL APPLIANCES / ADAM AND BARBARA MAITLAND
/ EST. 1963. BEETLE JUICE points at the window.
BEETLE JUICE
You. The Maitlands. 'Cause
people like you are the backbone
of the afterlife. Just because
you're dead doesn't mean that
you can't still hold onto the
things that were important to
you when you were alive.
BARBARA and ADAM are evidently a little uncomfortable with this
selfish interpretation of their actions.
BEETLE JUICE (cont)
So, basically what we got
here is a third-class inter-
session. Nothing big, and
if it's works we're all
happy. I'm gonna teach you
guys a few tricks. And we're
gonna start out with something
simple.
ADAM
You've handled problems like this
before, haven't you?
Behind them, the window of the appliance store suddenly crack
into a spider's web pattern, completely obliterating BARBARA and
ADAM's names. Hearing the noise, BARBARA and ADAM start to turn
their heads, but BEETLE JUICE prods them forward.
BEETLE JUICE
You ever hear of a place called
Amityville?
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- NIGHT
DELIA reading in bed, and watching television, and eating. She
hears a noise outside in the corridor, listens for a moment and
then gets up to investigate.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NIGHT
Empty, but a closet door is open.
DELIA goes down to investigate. She finds in the open linen
closet that one of the drawers is open, and a pile of her best
designer sheets has been dropped on the floor.
DELIA
Damn those girls.
She picks the sheets back up, puts them in the drawer, and shits
the linen closet door.
She returns to her bedroom.
When she disappears, the linen closet door swings slowly open
again. BARBARA and ADAM come out holding sheets.
BARBARA
I might have known a woman
like that wouldn't have a
single pair of plain white
sheets.
ADAM
I don't think this is going
to work.
INT: CHARLES'S STUDY -- NIGHT
This is the first room to have been totally set up, with four
different word processors. Above each computer are framed covers
of paperback books that Charles has written: thrillers, detective
novels, romances, and westerns.
CHARLES is working with two printers at once, and the pages are
just spilling out. CHARLES is also working a Xerox machine, and
talking on the telephone -- all at the same time.
CHARLES
No, Evelyn, ten per cent
on the first hundred K, and
twelve thereafter. No more
of this --
He hears something in the corridor outside -- a kind of low
moaning.
CHARLES
Just a minute, Evelyn.
Somebody --
He goes to the door and flings it open.
Two figures are right there in the doorway -- ghosts under
sheets. But they're designer sheets.
CHARLES
Oh Jesus, you two. Is
Connecticut so boring that
you have to think up shit like
this? I've got a book due at
Dell tomorrow morning, and I'll
get a bonus if it's there on
time -- and you want to make
me miss that bonus?
He slams the door, turns around. Then turns around again, and
jerks the door open. The ghosts are startled.
CHARLES
And Delia is going to kill you
when she sees that you cut holes
in her Ralph Lauren sheets.
He slams the door again.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NIGHT
ADAM and BARBARA as ghosts under the sheets.
BARBARA
Don't you think he could
have come up with something
a little more -- I don't
know -- scary?
ADAM
Well, he said we'd have
to start slow.
At this moment, they are startled when the door of LYDIA's room
flies open. LYDIA jumps out and takes a whole series of
photographs of them, one after the other.
LYDIA
Sick! Sexual perversion! You
guys never did this kind of thing
in New York. Total gross-out.
If you're going to do weird
sexual stuff you ought to stay
in your bedroom, okay? It's
so embarrassing.
LYDIA flies back into her room.
ADAM
(Discouraged) Keep it trying?
BARBARA
Might as well.
They open the door of the master bedroom and glide inside.
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- NIGHT
Television still going, DELIA asleep. ADAM and BARBARA go over
and stand beside the bed.
ADAM
He said to moan.
Tentatively, they MOAN and GROAN. DELIA doesn't stir.
BARBARA
I feel really stupid.
ADAM
I know. But we're ghosts. And
ghosts are supposed to moan.
Moan louder.
They MOAN LOUDER, and more weirdly.
DELIA stirs, reaches over to the bedside table for the remote
control device, and without opening her eyes, turns off the
television set. Then she turns over, and is lost to the world.
BARBARA sighs. She and ADAM walk towards the door. When they
open it however, CATHY is standing there -- and both ADAM and
BARBARA jump backwards with yelps of fright.
CATHY
Are you the guys who're hiding
out in the attic?
ADAM
(Faked voice of terror) We're
ghosts.
BARBARA
(Moans weirdly)
CATHY
What do you look like under
there?
ADAM and BARBARA go out into the hall -- as if to keep from
waking DELIA with their conversation.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NIGHT
ADAM, BARBARA, and CATHY.
ADAM
Aren't you scared?
CATHY
Those are sheets. I'm not
afraid of sheets. Are you gross
under there? Are you "Night of
the Living Dead" under there?
ADAM
What?
CATHY
It's this gross movie.
BARBARA
Young lady, if I had seen a ghost
at your age, I'd have been
frightened out of my wits. I'd
suggest you go to your room and
think about that. Come on, Adam.
BARBARA and ADAM continue down the hall with as much dignity as
they can muster under the circumstances. CATHY trails along
behind them, then steps on the dragging tails of their sheets.
The sheets slip off, exposing BARBARA and ADAM -- looking pretty
silly in their underwear.
CATHY
You're not gross. Why were you
wearing the sheets?
BARBARA and ADAM whirl around.
BARBARA
That's what we were told to do.
ADAM
You can actually see us? Even
without the sheets?
Then ADAM and BARBARA realize that they are standing in their
underwear and grab the sheets to recover their modesty.
CATHY
Is this like a trick question?
ADAM
No, it's not a trick question.
Can you really see us?
BARBARA
Tell the truth.
CATHY
I always tell the truth, even
when it hurts and gets me in
trouble and people don't want
to hear it. Of course I can
see you.
BARBARA
Nobody else can.
CATHY
(Shrugging) Were you trying to
scare my mom or something?
BARBARA
Something like that.
CATHY
It won't work. She's sleeping
with Prince Valium tonight. I
stole the key to the attic, you
know.
INT: ATTIC ROOM -- NIGHT
The mechanical moon makes its slow track through the heavens.
Moonlit, serene.
BACK TO SCENE --
ADAM, BARBARA, and CATHY stand just beyond the fringes of the
town, dimly lighted giants.
CATHY
Where are the little figures
I saw in there yesterday?
ADAM
That was us.
CATHY
Really? How'd you make your-
selves shrink?
BARBARA
It just happened. Sometimes
we have control, but most of
the time --
CATHY nods. Life is like that.
CATHY
(To ADAM) You did this? You
carved all these little houses
and things?
ADAM
(Pleased) I certainly did.
CATHY
And this used to be your house,
I bet.
BARBARA
I don't think it would be a
very good idea if you told your
parents or your sister that
we're up here.
ADAM
Unless you think we could scare
them.
CATHY
Why do you want to scare
everybody?
ADAM
We want to frighten you away.
So that you'll move out.
CATHY
You don't know my family very
well, do you? (Beat) I like
it up here. Can I visit you
sometimes?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
EXT: HOUSE -- DAY
Like all the other shots, but there's a quality of waiting about
it. Full sun.
EXT: SIDE OF HOUSE -- DAY
Shaded by a tree.
EXT: BASEMENT WINDOW -- DAY
Heavily in shadow.
INT: BASEMENT -- DAY
Shadowed, potentially filled with terror as are all basements in
horror movies. CAMERA moves over to a little shed-like room in
the corner. Noise of a FAST-MOVING CLOCK.
INT: UPSTAIRS BATHROOM -- DAY
DELIA shrieks. Going through the dirty clothes, she's just come
across the sheets with the eye-holes cut in them.
DELIA
Lydia! Cathy! Cathy!
INT: DARKROOM -- DAY
A photograph coming up in the developing tank -- the ghosts in
the hallway.
LYDIA
Oh my God... oh shit...
No feet...
INT: DOWNSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DAY
LYDIA, pounding up from the basement with the wet print, collides
with DELIA, rushing down from the second floor with the scissored
sheets.
LYDIA
Oh God, Delia. They were
ghosts! Ghosts! They didn't
have any feet!
DELIA
Lydia, I'm going to kill you,
honest to God I'm going to kill
you. I'm going to lock you in
that basement like you were a
goddamned hyacinth.
LYDIA stands open-mouthed with the wet photograph. DELIA turns
on her heel and storms up the stairs.
DELIA (cont)
Cathy! Cathy! I'm going to
kill you too.
INT: CHARLES'S OFFICE -- DAY
Later in the day. LYDIA has calmed down, changed clothes. She
now has a number of the prints. CATHY's there too, looking at
the prints, saying nothing, and certainly not giving away the
fact that she talked to the ghosts.
CHARLES is seated before the word processor, vainly trying to
work.
LYDIA
Can you believe it? I mean,
this is the weirdest --
CHARLES
Lydia, I don't know what it
is with you and these practical
jokes, but --
LYDIA
THIS IS NOT A JOKE!
CHARLES
This is air-brushing. This is
a result of that class you took
in air-brushing last fall. It's
pretty good, but I've seen better.
Now would you two please --
The door of the room flies open, and there stands DELIA, carrying
several sets of sheets.
DELIA
I want you two girls to know
that there is no Ralph Lauren
outlet in Winter River. Which
means that Otho and Evelyn
-- our very first overnight
guests in this house -- are going
to be sleeping tonight on a
polyester blend.
She flings the sheets at LYDIA and CATHY.
LYDIA
Delia, look at these pictures.
Please. Just for a minute.
Honest. There are ghosts in
this house.
CATHY
There are. I've seen them.
The family stare at her for a minute.
CATHY (cont)
I talked to them. They're
very nice. (Beat) Their names
are Adam and Barbara, and they
live --
In the midst of this, DELIA explodes.
DELIA
I can't believe you two are doing
this to me! Ghosts. Ghosts.
Otho and Evelyn will be here in
half an hour and I haven't even
begun to salt the ducks and
you are coming to me with this
bullshit about ghosts! I can't
believe that you two are trying to
undermine my self-esteem in this
way.
She storms out of the room.
CHARLES looks at his two daughters.
CHARLES
Great. Fabulous. It's going to
be a terrific evening. I can tell
already.
He goes out, after DELIA.
CATHY is left alone with LYDIA. LYDIA flings the photographs at
CATHY.
LYDIA
You jerk. That would have believed
me if you hadn't thrown in all that
other crap. They'll never listen
to me now.
LYDIA storms out.
CATHY
But it's true. They're...
She's all alone in the office.
One of the printers sputters to life, and begins to spew out
pages.
CATHY slowly walks out of the room, looking through LYDIA's
photographs.
INT: THE ATTIC -- DAY
ADAM and BARBARA are looking at the photographs.
CATHY
Those are the pictures my
sister took, and even when
she showed them to Mom and
Dad, they didn't believe
you were real. And then I
said I had met you, and they
still didn't believe us.
ADAM
Well, we'll have to try
something else. Maybe if
you came back a little later,
we could work something up.
Sort of try it out on you
first.
CATHY
I don't know if I can come
back tonight. We're having
guests -- Lydia's real mom,
and Otho -- he's the one who's
helping Mom do all the re-
decoration. And Mom says I
have to macerate the endive.
CATHY leaves.
BEETLE JUICE (v.o.)
Poor kid.
ADAM and BARBARA look down into the model.
IN THE MODEL --
BEETLE JUICE lies sunning himself in the park. He's wearing the
world's smallest Speedo, and has a sunning reflector around his
neck.
BARBARA
Those sheets didn't work at
all.
BEETLE JUICE
I told you. You have to start
small till you get the hang of
it. Hey', they're giving a
party tonight, and there's
your chance.
ADAM
You'll tell us what to do?
BEETLE JUICE
That's what I'm here for,
pal. Hey, you're blocking
my rays.
ADAM and BARBARA pull back.
INT: DINING ROOM -- NIGHT
The DEETZ's first dinner party, using EVELYN (CHARLES's first
wife,) and OTHO as guinea pigs. Even so, things aren't going as
well as DELIA had hoped. It's EVELYN who's putting in the knife,
and OTHO (under the guise of friendship) who's twisting it.
EVELYN
Nobody understands why
you did it, Delia.
CATHY
Did what?
EVELYN
Drag your whole family into
the wilds of Connecticut.
You'll never get anybody
to visit you.
CHARLES
You came quickly enough,
Evelyn.
EVELYN
That's because I had to get
you to sign some very important
contracts. People come up to
me, and say, "Why on earth did
they do it? What's in Winter
River?"
LYDIA
Zilch. Zilch is what is in
Winter River.
OTHO
Well, I defend you. I tell
people that I think it was
a wonderful idea. Charles can
write without distraction --
and for a conceptual artist like
Delia who is -- let's face it,
in a critical slump... I tell
people it's good for you to
appear inaccessible. But I have
to agree with Evelyn, it's going
to be hard to get people out here.
DELIA, in her agitation, knocks over a glass of water. The glass
falls off the table onto the fine Oriental carpet beneath the
table. There's a little distracting to-do about retrieving it.
DELIA
Well, there's not going to be
any difficulty about getting them
out here when they find out just
how special this house is.
OTHO
It's nice, Delia, and it will be
more than presentable when I've
worked my way with it -- but I
don't know if I'd care to use the
word special.
DELIA
Ghosts aren't special? Ghosts
are pretty special in my book.
CHARLES
(Cautionary) Lydia and Cathy
tried to play a little joke on
us this afternoon.
LYDIA
It wasn't a joke.
CHARLES
They tried to convince Delia
and me that this house was
haunted.
OTHO's glance is sharp at this.
DELIA
Of course I was a little
sceptical at first, but I've
always felt I had a sympathy
with that sort of thing.
And Otho, ghosts should be
right up your alley.
LYDIA
Why?
DELIA
Before Otho started
slinging chintz he was
giving backroom seances
in the East Village.
OTHO
Yes, well, the bottom fell
out of the psychic market
in seventy-two, but my powers
are undiminished. And I have
never relinquished my profound
interest in matters of the
spirit.
EVELYN
Delia, it's cute schtick, but
you're going to have a pretty
rough time convincing
me -- or any of your other
friends -- that this house is
haunted. We're going to need
-- what's that phrase?
OTHO
Ocular demonstration.
EVELYN
Right. Proof. We just --
EVELYN suddenly breaks off with --
A VIOLENT SCREAM.
DELIA stares at her for a moment, then an expression of shock
crosses DELIA's face and she shrieks as well.
The two women try to push back their chairs from the table, but
can't.
The patterned flowers and vines in the carpet have begun to grow,
twisting around the chair- and table-legs.
New shoots and vines appear, unfold, and twist even as we watch.
The flowers bud and bloom, as in a Disney time-lapse nature film.
Everyone looks on with astonishment as more of the carpet
sprouts. There is a general retreat from the table.
LYDIA fetches one of her cameras, never very far away.
LYDIA
It's the ghosts. I told you.
I told you they were real.
CHARLES
Then Cathy was telling the
truth too. (To OTHO) She
said she had talked to them.
OTHO
It's woooon-der-fullll. In-
controvertible proof of the presence
of the supernatural element in this
house. I was, and I remain, an
expert in this field.
DELIA shoots a look of triumph at EVELYN.
INT: ATTIC ROOM -- NIGHT
ADAM and BARBARA lying on the floor with their heads near the
window, looking out over the front yard.
ADAM
Any minute now. They'll all
run screaming --
Timid knock at the door of the attic.
BARBARA glances at ADAM and then goes to the door and opens it.
CATHY is standing there, sheepish.
CATHY
They'd like for you to come
downstairs. Mom says you
can use any sheets you want.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The DEETZs, OTHO, and EVELYN are sitting expectantly. The
photographs are being passed around.
DELIA
I mean, doesn't it indicate a
marvellous sense of humor on the
part of the ghosts that they
actually do appear in sheets?
Who would expect that?
OTHO
We are obviously dealing with
a very sophisticated pair.
EVELYN
Charles, I want to know why
you didn't call me about this
right away. The book rights
alone could make us a fortune...
She waves a hand toward the dining room. It's a total jungle in
there now.
CHARLES
We were just waiting for proof,
Evelyn.
He points to LYDIA's photographs.
EVELYN
Yes, of course. Lydia
darling, these prints alone --
CATHY appears at the base of the stairs. Everyone looks to her
expectantly.
CATHY
They just won't. They wouldn't
say why.
DELIA
Well they have to. That's all
there is to it.
OTHO
They must have a reason.
CATHY
I think the reason is they were
trying to scare you, and you
didn't get scared --
DELIA
Of course we weren't scared.
Just a little startled.
CHARLES
I don't see --
He breaks off when he looks back at the dining room. It's
completely clear again. All eyes travel to that room.
EVELYN
Of course they were rather
spectacular effects -- for
Connecticut I mean.
DELIA
Are you insinuating --
OTHO
(To CATHY) You can see them,
can't you?
CATHY doesn't answer.
CHARLES
Where do they live? Hide out?
OTHO
All presences have a home
space. A place where they
work out of, so to speak.
CATHY
The attic.
DELIA
(To CATHY) Well then, come
on.
INT: LANDING OUTSIDE OF ATTIC
CATHY AND DELIA
DELIA
They're in there? This is
where they've been hiding
out?
CATHY nods. DELIA pounds on the door.
DELIA
All right, you dead people,
come on out, or we're going
to break down this goddamn
door and drag you downstairs.
CATHY
Why don't you say please?
DELIA
You've got to take the
right tone in things like this,
Cathy, or people -- whether
they're dead or alive -- people
will walk all over you. These
are lessons that it's important
for you to learn. (Loud) Come
on you, or I will make death
so miserable for you that you
will wish you had never been
buried.
The door cracks open with an EERIE WHINE.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The family waiting, expectant. DELIA comes down the stairs with
a smug smile. CATHY follows, looking worried.
CHARLES
Are they coming?
OTHO
They're already here. I can
feel it.
EVELYN
(Sceptical)
How do we know?
She looks at CHARLES, as if to say, DELIA's Trying To Pull a Fast
One.
Then, quite suddenly, these things happen:
An ugly modern lamp is knocked over and smashed.
An enormous rip appears in a dreadful canvas on the wall.
The ugly rug in the center of the room has a pentangle charred
into it.
All the chairs are knocked over backwards, with everyone
spilling out.
There's a moment of stunned silence, and then the DEETZs and
their two guests -- without saying a word -- get up and begin
politely to applaud.
INT: MODEL WHOREHOUSE -- NIGHT
Old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century, parody of Storyville. BEETLE
JUICE is surrounded with horned lovelies, drinking champagne,
carousing. The song "Honky Tonk Angel" is playing on a piano.
INT: ATTIC -- NIGHT
BARBARA and ADAM, in high dudgeon, are staring down at the model.
The whorehouse is garishly lighted -- and we hear the music only
faintly.
ADAM
I did not build a
cathouse for Winter River.
He reaches down and lifts off the roof of the cathouse.
INT: MODEL WHOREHOUSE -- NIGHT
The roof comes off. The horned lovelies scatter with little
squeals of fright.
BEETLE JUICE
You went to a party.
Thought I'd have a little
party of my own. How'd it
go, guys?
BARBARA
It went great. Now it looks
like we're going to spend the
next hundred and thirty-two
years doing parlor tricks.
ADAM
It didn't scare them a bit.
They applauded. Are you going
to be able to give us some
real help?
BEETLE JUICE
Yeah. Sure. So you're asking
me to really help you?
BARBARA & ADAM
Yes, we are.
BEETLE JUICE
Then I'll put my thinking cap
on. And you two guys don't
have to worry about anything
anymore.
ADAM replaces the roof, and it shakes the whole house.
BEETLE JUICE sits alone in the whorehouse parlor, sipping
champagne. He has a wry smile on his face. Everything is going
according to plan.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
INT: WINTER RIVER HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA -- NOON
We open on a large banner reading: WELCOME BACK WINTER RIVER
BADGERS
We pan off the banner to three hundred stunned-looking Badgers,
the freshest-faced crop of wholesome American teens ever
assembled in one cafeteria.
They all stare dumbfounded at...
LYDIA DEETZ
sitting all alone in full DEATH ROCKER regalia. She wears a T-
shirt emblazoned with a holographic image of the CHEST-BURSTER
from ALIEN; a skirt that appears to be made of barbed wire;
Nefertiti eye make-up; earrings that are dangling mouse skulls.
Completing the ensemble is a pair of high-heeled boots with a
hobble bar attached.
Sitting in front of her is a single half-pint container of white
milk.
From the opposite side of the room, an intrepid female BADGER
gets up and crosses to LYDIA. She's blonde and sweet, and
obviously drew the short straw.
LYDIA eyes her approach darkly.
The BADGER reaches LYDIA's table.
BADGER
Cheerleader tryouts are
Saturday.
LYDIA
Great. I'll be in New
York.
EXT: HOUSE -- DAY
It actually looks good -- at least from the outside. Calm and
sedate.
It even seems to turn Norman Rockwell-time when a big yellow
schoolbus arrives and deposits CATHY on the front lawn.
The entire busful of children lean out of the windows to wave
frantically at CATHY -- she was evidently a hit at school. When
the bus takes off, CATHY goes up the front steps of her house,
and in at the front door.
INT: FOYER AND LIVING ROOM -- DAY
OTHO's worked his magic, and the house is exactly as DELIA
probably wanted it. Fashionable in the extremity of the term,
angling for a spread in Architectural Digest. Garish,
uncomfortable, expensive, not meant in any serious way for human
habitation.
CATHY
Hi mom.
DELIA
I'm four minutes off.
DELIA is in the corner of the living room, working on her water
clock. This is a tall, enormous, narrow sculpture -- reaching
floor to ceiling, and then stretching up through a hole carved
through to the next floor. It's a mass of small buckets, dishes,
drains, pipes, levers, and counter-weights with running water
keeping the whole thing in tremulous motion. It somehow also
manages to keep the time on a little dial that's set on a kind of
eye-stalk protruding into the room.
BACK TO SCENE --
DELIA is making fine-tuning adjustments.
CATHY
I'm going upstairs to do
homework, Mom.
DELIA
I know where you're going,
you're going up to the attic.
CATHY
Just for a little while.
DELIA
They know about the thirtieth.
CATHY
I told them.
DELIA
This housewarming party is
very important to your father
and me. And they had better
come across. They're not
getting a free ride in this
house.
CATHY starts up the stairs.
CATHY
I'll remind them.
DELIA calls after her daughter.
DELIA
Something spectacular, Cathy!
When CATHY is out of hearing.
DELIA (cont)
Then out they go.
INT: SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY -- DAY
CATHY comes up from the first floor. She drops her book bag
inside the door of her room, and goes softly on. She's going to
pass the open door of her father's study. He's talking to his
ex-wife and agent on the telephone.
CATHY starts to creep by the room, but suddenly
CHARLES'S ARM
reaches out and grabs her, and pulls her inside.
INT: CHARLES'S STUDY -- DAY
As usual, two or three printers are going full blast.
CHARLES hangs up the telephone, and hugs CATHY close.
CHARLES
You know what?
CATHY
What?
CHARLES
I just did a four-book
contract with lay-backs
to hard cover, with
eight and ten breaking
at a hundred and fifty.
You know what that means?
CATHY
No.
CHARLES
You're going to be the only
girl in the fourth grade
with your own Limited
Partnership Real Estate
Tax Shelter.
TELEPHONE rings, and CHARLES instantly puts CATHY down and
answers the telephone. CATHY rungs out.
CHARLES
Hello?
INT: ATTIC -- DAY
ADAM and CATHY are poring over the model. ADAM is looking at a
series of Polaroid photographs that CATHY has brought in.
CATHY
When people asked why I was
taking pictures of everything,
I told them it was a school
project.
BARBARA comes up.
ADAM
Here's a headline for you.
A friend of Cathy's mother
just bought our appliance store,
and turned it into a Jello
stand.
CATHY
Not jello. Gelloto.
BARBARA
What's gelloto?
CATHY
Well, it tastes just like ice
cream, but it costs about three
times as much. Beverly says
she's filling a need and will
make a fortune.
BARBARA starts looking through the Polaroids.
BARBARA
Beverly is your mother's friend?
CATHY
She just moved here, and
Beverly's ex-husband and his
Chinese boyfriend are moving up
next month. They bought the
old Baptist Church and are going
to set up an Academy of Aerobic
Self-Defense.
ADAM
Defense against what?
CATHY
Muggers.
BARBARA
Nobody has ever been mugged in
Winter River.
CATHY
Beverly was. But Mommy says
Beverly has a victim complex.
ADAM and BARBARA are getting insight into a world they never knew
existed.
ADAM
There certainly have been
a lot of changes recently.
CATHY
Mommy wanted me to remind
you about her party on the
thirtieth.
BARBARA
We haven't forgotten.
ADAM and BARBARA exchange troubled glances.
CATHY
I think it's really great
that all you guys are working
together now. I feel like
I've got two families. I just
wish they could see you the
way I can.
ADAM
Honey, could you go downstairs?
Barbara and I need to talk for
a few minutes. But come back
up in a little while and visit
us.
CATHY
Sure.
She leaves.
BARBARA
I hope we're doing the right
thing.
ADAM
There was nothing else --
NOISE OF A MOTORCYCLE --
turns their attention towards the model town. They peer down
into --
MODEL TOWN --
BEETLE JUICE is riding down Main Street on a Mo-Ped. ADAM and
BARBARA hover above him like titans in the sky.
BEETLE JUICE does wheelies, and comes to an abrupt halt.
BEETLE JUICE
Real cute kid, hunh?
He drags down the length of the street.
BEETLE JUICE
I'm gonna use my imagination
on that one.
BARBARA'S HAND reaches down into the model, and plucks BEETLE
JUICE off the Mo-Ped. The Mo-Ped spins forward and crashes
through a doorway in one of the model buildings.
BARBARA lifts him up towards her squeezing him slightly.
BARBARA
I don't know what you've
got in mind for their party
but leave her out of it.
CU: BEETLE JUICE IN BARBARA'S HAND
BEETLE JUICE grins. Suddenly large spikes shoot out all over his
body, piercing the skin of BARBARA's palm and fingers. BARBARA's
blood is a rich pink.
She releases the evil spirit and he plummets. BEETLE JUICE
parachutes to a soft landing on the town common.
BEETLE JUICE
Watch it. I can work
against you, too.
BEETLE JUICE suddenly lightens up.
BEETLE JUICE (cont)
But don't worry about that
little girl. I'm more
interested in her sister.
INT: EVELYN'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT
EVELYN is CHARLES's agent and ex-wife; she is also LYDIA's
mother. Her apartment is in a section of Queens recently become
fashionable.
EVELYN is on the phone to CHARLES. LYDIA stands by, wearing an
outfit even more outrageous than before, impatient.
EVELYN
(Into telephone) She
promises she'll be home
by six in the morning,
Charles. But I told her
I had to check with you
first.
EVELYN listens for a moment.
EVELYN
Fine. I'll talk to you
tomorrow.
She turns to LYDIA.
EVELYN
All right. You can go.
If you promise to take
taxis, and not use any
drugs you didn't bring
from home.
EXT: RAPTURE -- NIGHT
Rapture is the newest and trendiest New York club, located in a
deconsecrated church.
Four hundred Death Rockers are milling around on the sidewalk,
waiting for entrance.
Over the door is a banner reading: TONIGHT ONLY / DANNY DEATH.
INT: RAPTURE -- NIGHT
The interior of Rapture has been decorated as the Halls of Hell,
in stylish black and red. The crowd is equal to its
surroundings.
We find LYDIA standing very near the stage area, surrounded by
half a dozen of her old friends from New York.
They are watching one of the evening Talent Acts, which is a
MAGICIAN performing the coffin and swords trick to the thrashing
pre-recorded music of Motorhead. A YOUNG WOMAN enters an upright
coffin and the door is shut, in a way that leaves her face
exposed. The MAGICIAN plunges, one after the other, five swords
through slits in the coffin. He holds up the sixth and final
sword, and then plunges it straight through the young woman's
breast.
The YOUNG WOMAN screams, and a LONG ARC OF SPURTING BLOOD spews
out into the audience, spraying LYDIA's friends. On stage, the
MAGICIAN withdraws the six swords, and opens the coffin. The
YOUNG WOMAN, with a bloody gash in her breast spills out onto the
stage.
The crowd applauds madly as the stage goes completely black. In
the audience, LYDIA wipes the stage blood from her face.
LYDIA
This stuff is so lame.
None of it's real.
FRIEND #1 turns to FRIEND #2.
FRIEND #1
If she mentions those
goddamn ghosts of hers
one more time I'm going
to puke in her cleavage.
LYDIA
I have touched the other
side, you people. And if
you don't believe me just
wait till next Saturday
night.
Suddenly, there is the very loud and very eerie violin obliggato
coming from everywhere.
Then, on the blackened appear TWO YELLOW SNAKE'S EYES. Then, a
moment later, we see shape of a violin outlined in white neon.
The lights come up gradually and luridly, to reveal BEETLE JUICE
/ DANNY DEATH, alone on the stage with his electric neon violin.
He has been transformed into the ultimate DEATH ROCKER. For a
few moments, the eerie solo violin continues to play, bringing a
surprising hush over the audience. Then, in a hugely amplified
version of his own voice, we hear him recite the following poem,
to the accompaniment of his violin.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
Young soul, put off your flesh and come
With me into the quiet tomb.
Our bed is lovely, dark and sweet
The earth will swing us as she goes
Beneath our coverlid of snows
And the warm leaden sheet.
By this time he is at the front of the stage, before an
enthralled audience. No one however is more enthralled than
LYDIA, for it becomes apparent that BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH is
directing his words solely to her.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
Dear and dear is their poisoned note
The little snakes of silver throat
In mossy skulls that nest and lie
Ever singing, "Die, Oh die!"
FRIEND #3
He wants your body.
LYDIA
Shhh!
Like a demonic Bruce Sprinsteen, BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH pulls
LYDIA up onto the stage, and in his own voice, repeats the final
chorus directly to her.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
Sweet and sweet is their poisoned note
The little snakes of silver throat
In mossy skulls that nest and lie
Ever singing "Die, Oh die!"
When BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH finishes, there's a moment of
awed silence. Then as the applause begins, BEETLE JUICE / DANNY
DEATH walks off stage, leading LYDIA away.
In the audience, LYDIA's friends watch with astonishment.
FRIEND #1
Wait'll he finds out she
lives in Connecticut.
FRIEND #2 takes out his lighter in order to light his cigarette.
When he flicks the light, an enormous jet of BRIGHT BLUE FLAME
bursts out. Everyone draws back.
FRIEND #3
Blue flame. That means
there's an evil spirit
present.
All their eyes drift in the direction of BEETLE JUICE / DANNY
DEATH and LYDIA, who have made their way to the bar.
AT THE BAR --
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH has bought LYDIA and himself a Coke.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
What are you doing next Saturday
night?
LYDIA
I'm giving a party. (Beat)
Would you like to come?
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH hesitates.
LYDIA
(Sounding like the
sixteen-year-old she is)
We're gonna have real
ghosts.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
Wouldn't miss it.
EXT: MAIN STREET, WINTER RIVER -- DAY
It is a billiant fall day, as the DEETZ's silver BMW turns onto
Main Street.
Main Street is showing evidence of the first incursions of
Manhattan. While it is still charming and unpretentious for the
most part, BEVERLY'S GELOTTO, with its arrogant, high-tech
exterior, bodes ill for the future of this small town Main
Street.
INT: DEETZ'S BMW -- DAY
DELIA driving, LYDIA in the front seat, CATHY in the back,
looking out of the window.
LYDIA
Delia, he was great. I
mean, the audience was
totally silent, and he
had this neon violin,
and he pulled me up on
stage, and we talked
all night long, and he
promised he'd come to
the party, and I have
him directions and
everything, and he said
he might even sing.
DELIA
Well, we don't want to
steal focus from Cathy's
ghosts. But maybe we
could set up something
out in the barn. He
could use my sculptures
and do a kind of
environmental piece.
EXT: MAIN STREET -- DAY
DELIA pulls the BMW into a parking space in front of the DRY
CLEANERS.
INT: DRY CLEANERS -- DAY
-- A CLOUD OF WHITE STEAM
From the middle of which shine out two YELLOW SNAKE'S EYES.
As the eyes gradually humanize, and the steam dissipates, we see
BEETLE JUICE as an OLD WOMAN, operating a steam press at the back
of the dry cleaning establishment. In tight grey curls, a
flowered dress, and practical shoes, BEETLE JUICE looks like a
old New England shopkeeper.
DELIA comes in the front door, and throws several strange-looking
outfits across the counter, and looks about impatiently.
BEETLE JUICE/OLD WOMAN
Be with in a moment, dear.
DELIA waits two seconds, and then in a voice that is still trying
to be pleasant:
DELIA
I hate to be a nuisance,
but this isn't the only
stop I have to make today.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN cuts the power on the steam press, and
comes to the front of the shop between two long mechanized racks.
He is walking with a limp and a cane.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I'm sorry -- I don't move
as quickly as I used to.
I lost four toes last
winter. Frostbite. You
never think it can happen
to you till it happens
to you.
DELIA does not want to hear more of this story.
DELIA
I have to have these by
Saturday.
BEETLE JUICE examines the avant-garde outfits.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
They are dresses,
aren't they, dear?
DELIA
(Wondering if that was a dig)
You know how to take care
of material like this, don't
you?
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I've been running this place
for twenty-six years, ever
since Dad died. Dad was my
second husband. He had a
heart attack on Arbor Day.
He was planting that big
spruce in front of...
DELIA
Do you deliver?
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I'll bring them out myself.
EXT: MAIN STREET -- DAY
Piloted by the fuming DELIA, the BMW screeches away from the dry
cleaners. Halfway down the block, the BMW scatters an entire
troupe of Brownies.
INT: DRY CLEANERS -- DAY
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN stands behind the counter, his old
woman's face a death mask, with YELLOW SNAKE'S EYES embedded it.
Behind him, the DRY CLEANING RACKS spin around wildly with an
UNEARTHLY CLATTER.
INT: STEAM ROOM - NEW YORK ATHLETIC CLUB -- DAY
Full of steam. CHARLES and OTHO, swathed in towels, sit sweating
on benches.
OTHO
What are you in town for?
CHARLES
I'm arranging the catering
for Saturday night.
OTHO
Oh let me go with you.
CHARLES
We're having a sushi room,
and a tapas room, and your old
friend Alfredo is doing a
chocolate construction.
OTHO
Christ, how much is that
going to cost? Chocolate
constructions don't come
cheap, and once you start
taking sushi across state
lines you're talking real
money.
CHARLES
Otho, what difference does
it make? I'm writing this
whole party off my taxes.
And Delia's writing it off
of hers. Our whole goddamn
lives are deductible. Taxes
are just a game that you play
against the IRS and I always
make sure that I win.
OTHO
I wish somebody'd teach me how to
play.
CHARLES
It's easy. You just learn how to
make them play by your rules. (Beat)
Feels like it's getting hot in here.
Let's go.
CHARLES and OTHO get up and leave the steam room.
At the far end of the room is a sudden, agitated billowing of
steam.
BEETLE JUICE, with STARING YELLOW EYES, steps forward. He is
wearing a perfectly pressed, perfectly dry three-piece pin-
striped suit. He's wearing round wire-frame glasses, and a
narrow-brimmed hat. He is carrying a briefcase, with the
initialled monogram IRS.
He walks out of the steam room.
INT: LOCKER ROOM -- DAY
BEETLE JUICE / IRS, unnoticed, passes the shower room, where
CHARLES and OTHO are slowly turning under adjoining taps.
He passes a row of lockers, attracting the notice of a deeply
tanned YUPPIE jock, who is about to open his locker.
As BEETLE JUICE / IRS leaves, the YUPPIE turns back to his now
open locker, just in time to be CLOBBERED ON THE CHIN by a boxing
glove that shoots out of the locker on a spring. The YUPPIE is
smashed against the opposite wall of lockers.
The other men in the locker room do double-takes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
EXT: HOUSE -- DAY
The day of the party. Caterers vans pulled up. Workmen are
putting out table, and erecting a lighting system that wouldn't
be out of place in Madison Square Gardens.
CATHY rides up to the house on her bicycle. She weaves her way
with difficulty through the workmen. She takes the pack off her
back, and removes the mail that she's brought from the post
office.
INT: LIVING ROOM AND FOYER -- DAY
CATHY comes in the front door. Just as much pandeominum inside.
Caterers, people rearranging the furniture, DELIA is there with a
torch and mask, putting final touches on her water clock.
CATHY
I brought the mail.
DELIA
Have you put out the
guest towels yet?
CATHY
I was going to do it
right now.
DELIA is looking through the mail as CATHY starts up the stairs.
DELIA
Remember, folded in quarters,
creases to the left.
DELIA comes across a letter that puts the fear of God in her.
DELIA
CHARLES!
CHARLES is at that moment coming out of the kitchen, through the
dining room.
DELIA hands the letter to him.
DELIA
It's from the IRS.
Without a word, CHARLES tears into the letter.
DELIA
It's an audit, isn't it?
CHARLES
Yes.
DELIA
Call the accountant on
Monday. He'll take care
of it.
DELIA leaves.
CHARLES
(To himself) No. I'll call
him right now. This is --
An insinuating voice sounds behind CHARLES.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
It's a little late for
that, Mr. Deetz.
BEETLE JUICE is standing there, in the guise of the IRS man we
saw in the steam room.
CHARLES
Who are you?
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
My name is Irving Roger Smith.
He points the monogram on his briefcase: IRS.
CHARLES
(With misgiving) But what
are you doing here?
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
Look at your notice, Mr.
Deetz. Our appointment is
for today.
CHARLES
But you have to give warning
for an audit.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
Look at the envelope. That
notice was mailed four weeks
ago. Because we didn't hear
from you, we concluded that
the appointment was confirmed.
CHARLES
But I just got the notice
today.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
That's between you and the USPS,
Mr. Deetz.
CHARLES
In case you haven't noticed,
we're giving a little party
tonight, Mr. Smith.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
The first think I need to see
is every bank statement and
deposit receipt for the past
three years.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- DAY
CATHY and BARBARA are folding towels.
BARBARA
This is going to be some
party isn't it? Is it going
to be a cookout?
CATHY
No, but there's going to
be twenty-seven different
kinds of raw fish.
(Diffidently) Have you
decided what you're going to
do tonight? Mom wants you to
make sure it's something
really special.
BARBARA
(Uncomfortable) Adam and
I have figured out a few
things.
CATHY
I'm really glad you're doing
this. I think it will help.
Also, it'll be nice to have
some of my friends at the
party.
BARBARA
(Too quickly) Why don't stay
upstairs with us tonight? We'll
have our own little party.
CATHY
I can't really. Besides,
you guys --
A CHAIN SAW --
interrupts their conversation. BARBARA and CATHY exchange
glances and go to the window.
THEIR POV --
WORKMEN are hewing down ADAM's orchard in order to erect a
massive striped tent.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DAY
CHARLES is leading BEETLE JUICE / IRS down the hill, towards his
study. CHARLES moves like a convict going to execution.
CATHY hurtles out of her room and throws herself on CHARLES.
CATHY
Daddy! Daddy! They're
cutting down the orchard.
CHARLES
Not now, Cathy.
CATHY
It has to be now. They're --
CHARLES
NOT NOW!
He and BEETLE JUICE / IRS move on. At the door of the study
BEETLE JUICE / IRS turns and smiles at CATHY.
INT: ATTIC -- DAY
ADAM is lying on the floor, looking out a window. He is weeping
at the loss of his orchard.
He gets up, looks at BARBARA.
ADAM
I don't care what he
does to those people
tonight.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
CATHY and DELIA are in the middle of a heated argument.
DELIA
Cathy, we've got a
hundred and thirty-five
people coming to this
house in a matter of
hours. Don't come at
me with this bullshit
about trees.
CATHY
But --
DELIA
They were going anyway.
Otho and I are putting
in a Japanese meditation
garden.
CATHY stares at her mother for a moment, and then runs out
through the dining room.
INT: CHARLES'S STUDY
BEETLE JUICE / IRS is seated in front of a table that is stacked
high with CHARLES's financial records.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
Some people, Mr. Deetz,
think that taxes are just
a game to be played against
the IRS.
CHARLES starts to sweat.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS (cont)
Mr. Deetz, the IRS plays
hardball.
CHARLES
Ah, can I get you something
from downstairs. A little plate
of octopus or something?
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
(Smiling) I'm afraid not,
Mr. Deetz. That would con-
stitute bribery. I know
you have a party to give,
so why don't you just leave
me alone for a while? If I
need you, I know where to find
you.
Humbly, CHARLES walks out of the study.
INT: HALLWAY -- DAY
CHARLES leans against the door, deflated. He thinks of one more
bit of excuse-making and starts to open the door again.
The door is locked.
He backs away in distress.
INT: CHARLES'S STUDY -- DAY
BEETLE JUICE / IRS gets up from the table, and goes to the window.
HIS POV --
The orchard is almost levelled, but the trees nearest the house
remain standing. CATHY is watching, grief-stricken.
EXT: BACK YARD -- DAY
CATHY looks up at the house, having sensed that someone was
watching her.
No one appears in the study window. CATHY looks back to the
enormous truck that is eating up and shredding the toppled fruit
trees at an amazing clip.
OUT OF THE OPEN STUDY WINDOW --
A FUZZY-TAILED SQUIRREL makes a nearly superatural leap into the
branches of the last remaining fruit tree.
A WORKMAN applies the chain saw to the trunk of this tree, and in
a brief moment it topples to the ground.
The SQUIRREL is flung free, and lands stunned -- if not dead --
at CATHY's feet.
CATHY tenderly lifts the SQUIRREL and listens to its heart-beat.
It shudders in her hands, and weakly raises a GASHED PAW.
CATHY
You're bleeding.
She clutches the SQUIRREL to her breast and runs towards the
house.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- DAY
The SQUIRREL is lying in on a fluffed up towel in a wooden box.
Its paw is bandaged, and CATHY is feeding it water from a eye
dropped. It drinks the water eagerly, but still has not opened
its eyes.
CATHY
I'd feel a lot better
if you'd just open your
eyes.
From outside, we heard DELIA's frantic voice.
DELIA (v.o.)
Cathy, where are the
guest towels?
CATHY
Coming!
She closes the hinged lid of the box, and pushes it under her
bed.
CATHY
I'll check on you in
a little smile.
CATHY hurries out of the room, with the towels.
INSIDE THE BOX --
The SQUIRREL opens his eyes. They're COLD AND YELLOW, SNAKE'S
EYES.
INT: FOYER -- DAY
OTHO has arrived, and is carrying a small suitcase. He is
wearing an enormous fur coat, complete with hood, Norfolk belt,
and contrasting pockets. Whole forests of cute animals perished
to make this tent.
DELIA
Thank God you're here.
We've got the IRS upstairs,
Cathy pouting in corners,
I can't find Lydia, Charles
is sloshing his way through
a second pitcher of Long
Island Iced Tea, and the dress
I'm supposed to wear tonight
has not arrived from the
cleaners.
OTHO
Take me to my room, you poor
creature. I brought a suitcase
full of calm.
They start up the stairs.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DAY
It's empty. The door of CATHY's room slowly opens. Out steps
BEETLE JUICE as the OLD WOMAN from the cleaners. He is carrying
DELIA's clothes in plastic bags.
He steps directly across the hallway, and enters the MASTER
BEDROOM.
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- DAY
OTHO has spread out a pharmacopeia of legal and illegal
substances on DELIA's dressing table, and is allowing her to sort
through.
OTHO
The pink now, the blue
in fifteen minutes, let
those take effect and then
take a couple of reds
with a glass of apple
juice. That's what
I'd do.
DELIA looks up at BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN standing in the
doorway.
DELIA
What are you doing up here?
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I knocked and knocked, and
nobody came, so I just
walked on in, and your
daughter told me to bring
these on up here, so here
I am, and you must have a
terrible cold.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN is eyeing the drugs, which OTHO has
swept back into his enormous plastic Baggie.
OTHO
Delia, I think I'm going
to unpack.
DELIA
I'll come with you. (To
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN) Just
hang the clothes on the door.
DELIA gets up and goes out after OTHO.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN goes to DELIA's closet door and opens
it. It is jammed with expensive clothes.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
My, my. Such a wardrobe.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN's eyes dehumanize. They're COLD and
YELLOW.
EXT: WINTER RIVER TRAIN STATION -- DUSK
The six o'clock train from New York is pulling in. Half a dozen
native Winter Riverites get off the train, carrying shopping bags
bearing the logos of Manhattan stores. After them come four of
LYDIA's DEATH ROCKER friends. We saw them at RAPTURE.
LYDIA gives them hasty greetings, but it's apparent she is
looking for and hoping to see someone else.
She leads them over to the car, which she is driving. She walks
apart with her best friend in the group, TRIXIE. (It's her real
name.)
LYDIA
Oh God, I feel like a
jerk. I met every single
train from New York and
he's not here yet.
TRIXIE
You are a jerk. He's
not coming.
LYDIA
He promised. And Delia's
going to kill me, because
I haven't been at the house
all day.
As they're all piling into the car:
TRIXIE
Maybe he died and that's
why he couldn't come.
EXT: THE HOUSE -- DUSK
No more WORKMEN, no more VANS. Everything's ready, and
apparently calm. The strings of party lights on on, illuminating
the tent behind.
It would all be very pretty if we didn't know that ADAM's orchard
had been razed for this.
INT: MASTER BATHROOM -- DUSK
DELIA is at the mirror, with a towel wrapped around her. She is
drying her hair.
CHARLES lies in the bathtub, nearly comatose, with the shower
running full blast onto his face.
CHARLES
That man is still locked
in my study.
DELIA
(Totally unsympathetic)
We've got fifteen minutes
to get dressed.
DELIA walks out of the bedroom.
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- DUSK
DELIA walks in, and to her astonishment, finds
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
calmly sitting on the corner of the bed.
DELIA
What the hell are you still
doing here?
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I was waiting for my money.
That's fifteen seventy.
DELIA
Oh God. Look, wait out in
the hall. I'll get it in
a minute.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I hope you don't mind, but
I rearranged your closet a
little. It was in such a
mess.
DELIA
What? Oh, just get out --
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN leaves the room, as DELIA is opening the
closet door.
INT: THE HALLWAY -- DUSK
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN stands demurely at the door, waiting.
He's waiting for --
DELIA'S BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMS
When they come, he smiles an old lady's smile of satisfaction.
INT: MASTER BEDROOM -- DUSK
CHARLES runs in from the bathroom, with (or without) towel, and
finds DELIA ripping through her closet like a woman possessed.
Great piles of the ugliest and cheapest and gaudiest polyester
blend clothing imaginable have been strewn on the floor.
DELIA turns to her husband savagely.
DELIA
There is not one article
of clothing in that closet
which does not bear the
label K-Mart.
She holds up a muu-muu.
DELIA
That old woman is going
to die.
DELIA flies out of the bedroom, leaving CHARLES reaching for the
pitcher of New England iced tea.
INT: HALLWAY -- DUSK
DELIA confronts BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN.
DELIA
Get ready to die!
And by George, she does.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN's face blanches instantly. Her eyes
bulge and roll crazily. Her blackened tongue unrolls from her
mouth. Her heart palpitates visibly through her dress.
DELIA's rage turns to horror.
DELIA
Oh god, don't die.
Pulling herself up from the depths, BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
manages to croak out reassurance.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I'll be all right. I just
need my pills, and I have to
lie down for a few minutes.
BEETLE JUICE/ OLD WOMAN staggers into OTHO's room, and collapses
on the bed, with DELIA following.
INT. OTHO'S ROOM -- DUSK
DELIA
Right. Don't die. Just
lie down. We've got plenty
of pills. (Calling) Otho!
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN seems to recover a little.
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN
I'll be all right. Just
leave me alone for a little
while. And when I'm feeling
a little better, I'll get
up and leave. I don't want
to disturb your party.
DELIA
What about my clothes?
BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN starts to hyperventilate.
DELIA
No, no, don't do that.
DELIA backs out of the room.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DUSK
DELIA comes out of OTHO's room, just as LYDIA is coming up the
stairs from the first floor.
DELIA
Lydia, find Otho, and tell
him I need five of the red
ones, and I need them right
now.
LYDIA
Listen, I'm sorry I was
gone --
DELIA doesn't care. She flings open the door of the master
bedroom, and disappears inside.
The door of OTHO's room opens again, and out steps BEETLE JUICE /
DANNY DEATH.
LYDIA melts.
LYDIA
Oh God. You came.
You really came.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
I told you. I wouldn't
miss it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
EXT: THE TENT -- NIGHT
ADAM's orchard is now covered with a wooden platform, on which
half a dozen groaning tables have been laid out.
The DEETZ's party is comprised of three distinct groups: the
literary world (CHARLES), the art world (DELIA), and the DEATH
ROCKERS (LYDIA). These three groups mix rather better than one
would imagine. Certainly they're jostling one another to get at
the food.
CHARLES sits morosely alone near the corner of the tent, with a
pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea between his legs. A couple of
book types stand near him, exchanging glances over his head. As
CHARLES talks in his drunkeness, he stares up at the lighted
window of his study.
CHARLES
If I put it in a book
nobody'd believe it.
The IRS shows up, no
warning, he's in there
for seven hours, hasn't
even come out to take
a piss, God knows what
he's looking for, God
knows what he's gonna
find.
BOOKY #1
They never throw you in
jail unless they're able
to prove fraud.
CHARLES half-laughs, half-moans, and sinks back in his chair.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS suddenly appears in the lighted window, and
waves to CHARLES.
INT: THE BARN AND SCULPTURE GALLERY -- NIGHT
DELIA's sculptures, entirely too many of them, have been arranged
for maximum effect.
Two CRITICS stand in front of one of the more characteristic of
DELIA's pieces. They seem to be examining it intently. They
walk around it together. They come back to their original place.
CRITIC #1
Truly magnificent.
CRITIC #2
I know. I have never seen
such a pair of tits on a
sixteen-year-old.
Directly in their sight-line is LYDIA's friend TRIXIE.
TRIXIE gives a disgusted look to the CRITICS, knowing what
they're critiquing. She slouches towards LYDIA.
LYDIA is holding forth to a group of her friends.
LYDIA
He is totally amazing. All
the time I was down at the
train station waiting for him,
he was out here with Delia's
creations. Danny Death said
they were realer than real
life.
DEATH ROCKER #1, who was probably LYDIA's boyfriend before she
came across DANNY DEATH, just looks disgusted.
DEATH ROCKER #1
(Sarcastic) God, he's smart.
They look like total pre-
tentious crap to me.
LYDIA
Danny Death says that Delia
is working from a base of
total alienation.
TRIXIE
So where is he now?
LYDIA
Well, he's got this whole inner
life, and it's the true
reality, and sometimes it's
too much for him to deal
with. So he went to lie
down for a minute.
INT: OTHO'S ROOM -- NIGHT
It's the room where all the guests have thrown their coats, which
are now heaped in a very substantial pile on OTHO's bed.
OTHO comes into the darkened room, and flicks on the light. He's
half-seas over already, and is brushing crumbs from his vest.
OTHO
Oh God, I know it's at
the very bottom of the
pile.
Without regard for any of the other guests, he starts shoving the
other coats on the floor. After a few moments, he own coat is
revealed in all its peculiar splendor.
OTHO tries to lift his coat, but it won't come up from the bed.
OTHO pulls harder, and then sees that two rictored hands have a
vice-grip on the coat. The hood falls back and reveals the
stark, staring, and very deceased face of BEETLE JUICE / OLD
WOMAN.
OTHO falls back, but BEETLE JUICE / OLD WOMAN remains in a
sitting position on the bed.
OTHO is now sober.
INT: FOYER AND LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
DELIA is greeting late-arriving guests at the door. She is
wearing the muu-muu she found in her closet, tarted up with
jewelry and belts and other accessories. It is still, however, a
polyester blend muu-muu.
A richly-gowned MATRON is kissing DELIA on either cheek. As
DELIA pulls back, she says:
DELIA
Just put your coat in
the room at the top of
the stairs.
MATRON
I love your house. I
try to tell everybody
that Connecticut is not
the end of the world.
OTHO comes pounding down the stairs.
OTHO
Delia, we have a little
problem.
INT: KITCHEN -- NIGHT
Several GUESTS go out through the back door, past one of DELIA's
fellow artists, an anorexic chain-smoking action painter. She
leans against the stove, nearly crushed by a tweedy-looking
PUBLISHER.
PUBLISHER
I have incredible respect
for the avant garde in
every field.
ARTIST
Ever get planked in a
laundry room?
The PUBLISHER looks around the kitchen.
PUBLISHER
Which door?
The ARTIST points to the laundry room door. As the two of them
sidle inside, CATHY enters the kitchen from the dining room.
CATHY
I was looking for you
guys.
The ARTIST and the PUBLISHER stare at CATHY, as if they'd never
seen her before.
CATHY
Oh, not you.
The ARTIST and the PUBLISHER look around the otherwise empty
kitchen, shrug, and disappear into the laundry room.
CATHY'S POV --
ADAM and BARBARA are perched on the counter.
BARBARA
Are all these people friends
of your parents?
CATHY
Maybe not friends exactly.
But part of their networks.
OBVIOUS SEXUAL GROANS --
come out from behind the laundry room door. CATHY looks
curiously in that direction.
ADAM
Why don't we go up to the
attic for a while? You can
try to teach us how to play
gin rummy again.
CATHY
Okay, but I can't stay too
long.
The laundry room door starts to bang on its hinges. The GROANS
are more pronounced.
ADAM pulls CATHY out through the dining room. BARBARA stays
behind a moment, staring at the laundry room door.
INT: LAUNDRY ROOM -- NIGHT
The PUBLISHER and the ARTIST are in a heavy embrace against the
door. They're obviously up to something, but whatever it is has
not prevented the ARTIST from chain-smoking.
Suddenly, there's a powerful kick against the door, which sends
the entwined couple toppling into a basket of dirty laundry.
INT: KITCHEN -- NIGHT
Dusting her hands for a job well done, BARBARA follows ADAM and
CATHY into the dining room.
INT: OTHO'S ROOM -- NIGHT
DELIA and OTHO are trying to flatten out the rictored of BEETLE
JUICE / OLD WOMAN. They finally manage to do so, but their
stomachs turn at the sound of the CRACKING BONES.
OTHO
Do you want to call the
police? Or an ambulance?
DELIA
I'm not having a dead woman
carted out of my party.
Tomorrow's good enough.
For right now, let's just
get her in the closet.
OTHO gives DELIA a look, as if to say, "Are you sure?"
DELIA (cont)
She wasn't even invited.
They heave to.
INT: STAIRS TO SECOND FLOOR -- NIGHT
Two extraordinarily weird-looking ARTIST sorts perform the
tradition of gossipping viciously about the hosts.
ARTIST #1
Did you believe that weirdness
on the invitation about ghosts?
I mean, Delia is really reaching
this time, isn't she?
ARTIST #2
I think the whole family's
weird.
ADAM, BARBARA, and CATHY approach the bottom of the stairs.
ARTISTS' POV --
CATHY trips on the bottom step. But instead of falling, she is
lofted by invisible hands half a dozen steps higher. She regains
her balance, and continues up the stairs.
ARTIST #2
Exhibit A.
INT: SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY -- NIGHT
ADAM, BARBARA, AND CATHY pass OTHO and DELIA, coming out of
OTHO's bedroom. OTHO and DELIA look like two people who have
just hidden a corpse in the closet.
DELIA
(To Cathy) It's a wonderful
party, isn't it darling?
CATHY
Yes, it is.
ADAM shoots DELIA a hateful look -- after all, she cut down his
orchard. DELIA shivers.
DELIA
(To OTHO) Brrr.
OTHO
I felt it too.
DELIA and OTHO go downstairs. CATHY, ADAM, and BARBARA go up the
stairs to the attic. The hallway is temporarily empty. Then
BEETLE JUICE as the IRS agent creeps out of OTHO's bedroom, and
goes back into CHARLES's STUDY.
EXT: THE TENT -- NIGHT
We get the first indication that the party has been winding down.
Most of the food has been eaten (or dropped on the ground).
Everything looks unappetizing. There are only a few people out,
and the air is a little chill.
CHARLES still sits at the corner of the tent, staring up at the
lighted window of his study, working on yet another pitcher of
Long Island Iced Tea.
He grabs the arm of a GUEST passing just then.
CHARLES
(Slurred) What time is
it?
GUEST
Eleven o'clock. You don't
suppose you could bump up
the ghosts a little, do you?
I'm playing racketball at
six in the morning.
CHARLES
Ten hours. That's how long
he's been up there.
The GUEST, realizing CHARLES has not even heard his question,
moves on.
CHARLES POV --
BEETLE JUICE / IRS appears in the windows, and calls down to
CHARLES.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
Mr. Deetz, I'm reading for you
now.
INT: UPSTAIRS BATHROOM -- NIGHT
Sitting at a long make-up table are LYDIA and a very upper-class
matronly WOMAN. Expressionlessly, the MATRON watches LYDIA as
she revamps her DEATH ROCKER make-up, primping for DANNY DEATH.
MATRON
What color is that, dear?
LYDIA
It's called Agent Orange.
MATRON
Mind if I try it?
LYDIA passes it over.
MATRON
Is it true about the ghosts,
or is Lydia having on with
us again?
LYDIA
Well, I can't see them.
But my sister can. They're
supposed to come down at
midnight and move ashtrays
or something.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NIGHT
CHARLES is standing at the opened door of his study. BEETLE
JUICE / IRS is standing just inside the room, as if barring the
entrance.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
Well, it looks like I'm
going to be working on this
one through the night.
CHARLES
Oh God.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
But I thought I'd give you
a progress report. I found a
$58,000 discrepancy between
your bank deposits and your
reported income, and so far
I've come across approximately
$160,000 in unallowable
deductions. I telephoned my
superior, and we've decided
to widen the audit to include
the previous three years.
CHARLES is speechless with horror.
BEETLE JUICE / IRS
And Mr. Deetz, this is what I
think of your Schedule W.
He sends a PILE-DRIVING FIST into CHARLES's stomach, doubling him
over, then slams the door in CHARLES's face.
CHARLES
Oh God...
Still doubled over, with the Long Island teas churning ominously
in his bellow, CHARLES lurches down the hallway.
At that moment, EVELYN comes up the stairs, with a very
distinguished looking elderly gentleman.
EVELYN
Oh here you are, Charles.
I'd like you to meet the
editor-in-chief of Ballantine
Books. He's very interested
in your ghosts.
CHARLES makes a feeble attempt to straighten up. It is too much
for his stomach.
By the WRETCHING SOUNDS and shocked expression on the publisher's
face, it is obvious that CHARLES has just thrown up on the
publisher.
INT: BATHROOM -- NIGHT
LYDIA is just about finished with her make-up when CHARLES
staggers in, looking like a man who's just lost both his lunch
and his meal-ticket. From the way LYDIA's nose crinkles, it's
obvious he smells like five pitchers of half-digested Long Island
iced teas.
LYDIA
Eeeeoooouuu. Gross.
She gets up and goes out.
INT: HALLWAY -- NIGHT
LYDIA exits the bathroom just as BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH pulls
the door of CHARLES's study shut behind him.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
I've been looking for you.
LYDIA
You have to meet my family.
I've told them all about you.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
There's plenty of time for that
later.
He pulls LYDIA into her own bedroom and slams the door.
INT: SCULPTURE BARN -- NIGHT
DELIA and EVELYN are having words.
EVELYN
I don't know if I can pull
this one out of the fire.
Why did you let Charles
start drinking like that?
DELIA
The reason he started
drinking today is that he
was worried about the IRS
man upstairs. And the
reason he's worried about
him is because of those
tax scams you're always
talking him into.
EVELYN
Those tax shelters
allowed him to afford this
white elephant of a house
you talked him into buying.
DELIA
It was our idea to move
to Connecticut. And we love
living here, and we love
this house. And we both
love being a hundred miles
away from you.
We pull back to see a group of about twenty guests, with glasses
and plates of food, standing in a circle around the two women,
not at all trying to disguise their interest and enjoyment in the
fight.
OTHO breaks through the circle of spectators, and speaks to
DELIA.
OTHO
Everyone is enjoying this
immeasurably, Delia, but
you've only got half an hour
to get ready for your ghosts.
I think you'd better make an
announcement.
EVELYN
Your friends in the attic
better make this good, or
no one will ever accept one
of your invitations again.
DELIA
Eat my shorts, Evelyn.
OTHO and DELIA go off in close conference.
INT: LYDIA'S ROOM -- NIGHT
LYDIA is showing BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH the photographs on
her wall. They include the photographs of the ghosts, and also
other macabre subjects. As they move around the room, BEETLE
JUICE / DANNY DEATH keeps touching LYDIA knowingly, and despite
the sophistication of LYDIA's photographs, she is a very nervous
sixteen-year-old girl.
LYDIA points out a photograph of a mummified corpse.
LYDIA
I took this series in the
catacombs in Guanajuanto.
Delia wouldn't even go
inside, but I'm not afraid
of stuff like that.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH leans over and gives her a kiss on her
neck. At the same time, he's pushing her down against her desk.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
What are you afraid of?
Just as she's about to be pushed all the way back, LYDIA suddenly
wriggles out of his grasp, and grabs a large photograph album.
LYDIA
And these are great, too.
INT: THE ATTIC -- NIGHT
ADAM, CATHY, and BARBARA have been playing cards. ADAM is now
putting up the decks.
CATHY
I really do have to go
downstairs now.
BARBARA
Stay just a little
longer.
CATHY
I can't. Anyway, you
have to get ready to get
down, too. What are you
going to do for the guests?
ADAM
(Vaguely) Ah, we thought
we'd move some furniture.
Knock off people's hats.
You know, that kind of thing.
CATHY
That sounds great. We
were so lucky to move into
this house.
She leaves. ADAM and BARBARA are not very happy.
ADAM
What do you think Beetle
Juice has in mind?
BARBARA
I don't know, but he
promised not to hurt Cathy.
He's just going to scare
them enough to drive them
out.
ADAM and BARBARA look at each other. Both come to the same
conclusion.
BARBARA (cont)
That means Cathy will go
too. (Beat) Are you
thinking what I'm thinking?
ADAM
You know I am. It's been
like having a child of our
own. I think we better find
Beetle Juice.
BARBARA
To keep Cathy, I would
even put up with Delia
Deetz.
ADAM
I think it'll be fine.
All we have to do is tell
him we've changed our minds,
and that he should go back
wherever it was he came
from.
A that moment, though the windows are closed, a CHILL WIND begins
to blow though the attic.
BARBARA and ADAM look at one another with misgiving. Behind
them, the pages of the manual begin to flutter wildly.
INT: LYDIA'S ROOM -- NIGHT
The album of photographs lies open on the bed, displaying some
grotesque image.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH has LYDIA in a firm embrace and is
dancing her towards the bed. LYDIA doesn't want to go.
She hears the NOISE OF THE WIND in the attic above.
LYDIA
What's that noise?
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
It's just the wind.
LYDIA
We have to go downstairs
now. It's almost time for
the ghosts.
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH
But I have a little friend
I want you to meet first.
LYDIA is shocked.
LYDIA
Danny!
BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH releases LYDIA and steps back. He
opens his fur coat, smiling. His shirt buttons pop, one by one.
Through this opening wiggles a small, very much deformed version
of BEETLE JUICE / DANNY DEATH himself, attached at the trunk to
Danny's chest. This parasitic monstrosity flops backwards, and
hanging upside down, leers and grabs for LYDIA.
Screaming, LYDIA stumbles for the door.
EXT: PARK IN MODEL TOWN -- NIGHT
It's Before the Storm in the model town. The mechanical clouds
swing crazily across the sky. One of them comes loose and
crashes (in a way that clouds don't usually crash) into the city
hall. The wind blows mighty and whistling through the town.
BARBARA and ADAM are tied to a park bench. They are wrestling
uselessly with their bonds.
ADAM
I know he's going to
do something awful.
BARBARA
We've got to get loose
and find a way to stop
him.
ADAM
I wish we'd never dug
up that grave.
Suddenly, the hear the CLICK OF NUMEROUS HIGH HEELS on pavement,
and in a moment they are surrounded by Horned Whores of BEETLE
JUICE's brothel. The Whores are wearing cloth coats drawn
against the wind, and they're carrying small cardboard suitcases.
They surround the park bench, and stare at ADAM and BARBARA.
EXT: TENT -- NIGHT
The wind, blowing hard against the material of the tent, has
driven the guests inside the house. Inside, the employees of the
catering service are clearing up.
CATHY is walking among the plundered tables with a small plate.
She speaks to one of the workers.
CATHY
What kind of food do
squirrels like to eat?
EXT: MODEL PARK -- NIGHT
The HALF DOZEN WHORES have released ADAM and BARBARA. ADAM and
BARBARA are massaging their wrists.
WHORE #1
We're getting out of here,
and you better come with us.
This whole town's gonna
blow. At midnight.
BARBARA
Beetle Juice. I knew it.
ADAM
What do you mean, this town
is going to blow?
WHORE #2
Beetle Juice is gonna destroy
your house, and everything and
everybody that's in it -- and
that includes Hicksville here.
ADAM
How do you know this?
WHORE #3
That's what he always does.
He's cute, but he's the most
malevolent spirit in the
universe.
BARBARA
But he came here to help
us. We got him through the
manual.
The WHORES roll their eyes at BARBARA and ADAM's naivte.
WHORE #4
He tricks you. You were
supposed to get Swallowtail.
A HONKING HORN sounds, and a delapidated Greyhound bus pulls up
in front of the park.
WHORE #1
That's our bus. Are you
guys coming or not?
ADAM and BARBARA look at one another.
ADAM
No. We have to stay and pro-
tect that family downstairs.
The WHORES pile onto the bus. They lean out of the windows and
wave to ADAM and BARBARA.
WHORES
Good-bye. Good luck.
etc.
The bus takes in a cloud of diesel fumes, turns a corner, and is
lost to sight.
ADAM
I don't know how we're
going to fight him.
We don't even know to get
out of the model.
BARBARA thinks a moment, then looks up the hill to their house.
BARBARA
I think I know. Come
on.
She gets up and walks briskly across the grass, in the direction
of their home.
INT: KITCHEN -- NIGHT
It looks wrecked. The ARTIST from earlier staggers into the
kitchen, with another victim in tow. The victim is drunk, and
knocks over a glass on the counter. It smashes it on the floor.
The ARTIST heads for the laundry room, but when she tries to open
the door, it's slammed shut again, and from inside comes
CHARLES's voice.
CHARLES (o.s.)
It's occupied.
INT: LAUNDRY ROOM -- NIGHT
Family conference. DELIA, CHARLES, OTHO, and LYDIA. DELIA is
comforting a weeping LYDIA.
LYDIA
It was horrible. Oh God,
it was the worst thing
I've ever seen in my life.
CHARLES
IRS agents do not punch
people in the stomach. I
just know it.
OTHO
Delia, I looked in the closet
upstairs. It's empty, but
there was a gray wig and a
flowered dress on the floor.
DELIA
But I know that woman
was dead.
The family simultaneously come to the same conclusion.
LYDIA
It's the ghosts.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- NIGHT
CATHY is kneeling on the floor at the side of her bed. Beside
her is a plate heaped with fancily-cut raw vegetables.
She reaches beneath the bed, and pulls out the box with the
squirrel inside.
CATHY
Please be all right.
She opens the lid of the box.
INSIDE THE BOX --
is the SQUIRREL FROM HELL. It is a snarling, foaming beast with
BEETLE JUICE's COLD YELLOW EYES.
Before CATHY even has the chance to scream, IT LEAPS.
CUT:
INT: LAUNDRY ROOM -- NIGHT
DELIA
Oh God, you don't they'd
hurt Cathy, do you?
LYDIA
But they like her!
CHARLES
She's a little girl.
LYDIA
I'll go look for her.
DELIA
Are you all right?
LYDIA
I'm okay. We have to
find Cathy.
LYDIA leaves.
DELIA
(To Otho) How are you
on exorcisms?
OTHO
I know a few things we
could try. But I'd
suggest that you get
the guests out of here
before midnight.
INT: ATTIC
Framed in the attic, we see the model town bathed in artificial
moonlight. The tiny figures of ADAM and BARBARA are silhouetted
as they cross the bridge.
CLOSER --
ADAM and BARBARA race across the bridge, and up the hill that
leads them to their house. The wind is blowing in their faces.
ADAM
Even if we get there on
time, we have no idea how
to fight him.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
CU: DELIA's water clock. It is five minutes to midnight.
CHARLES is herding guests into the living room. DELIA has taken
up a space on the stairs.
DELIA
Listen people, I have an
announcement to make.
It's difficult for DELIA to get anyone's attention.
DELIA
LISTEN! I'm sorry, but
Charles and I are going to
have to ask you all to
leave. As quickly as
possible. Believe me, it's
for your own good.
GUEST #1
Delia, this is a very cheap
way to build suspense. Where
are the ghosts?
EXT: MODEL HOUSE -- NIGHT
BARBARA and ADAM mount the steps. The house appears completely
dark. ADAM peers in one of the windows.
ADAM
It's completely dark inside.
I don't think this is going
to work.
BARBARA
There's nothing else to do.
She pulls open the front door, and they step inside.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
ADAM and BARBARA enter at the back of the crowd of guests, while
DELIA continues to try to persuade them all to leave.
DELIA
See, the two ghosts love this
house as much as we do, and
they'll to do anything to drive
us out.
Groans from incredulity from the crowd.
DELIA
Somebody might get hurt.
Really.
BARBARA
They don't know about Beetle
Juice. They think it's us.
SCREAMS from upstairs.
DELIA and CHARLES look up in fear.
CHARLES
That's Lydia.
GUEST #2
This is getting hokier and
hokier.
LYDIA, full of terror, appears at the top of the stairs.
LYDIA
Oh God, Delia. Hurry.
It's Cathy.
CHARLES #3
Is this cheap or what?
DELIA and CHARLES run upstairs, leaving the grumbling guests.
ADAM
What has he done to
Cathy?
NEW ANGLE ON THE CROWD OF GUESTS --
They are parted like the Red Sea as an unseen ADAM and BARBARA
push through them in order to get upstairs. For the guests, this
is the first ominous indication that something may actually be
very wrong.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- NIGHT
CATHY lies on the floor, torn and bloody, as if attacked by an
animal several times her own size. The wooden box that held the
Squirrel lies in splinters around her. DELIA kneels at CATHY's
side, applying first aid. LYDIA runs in with more bandages.
CHARLES
Cathy! Cathy! Wake up.
Speak to us. Tell us what
happened.
DELIA
We know what happened.
It was the ghosts.
CATHY opens her eyes a little. She makes a feeble motion of
shaking her head no.
Unnoticed by anyone in the room, the bedroom door is pushed open.
CATHY
They're here.
DELIA
We know they're here,
darling. And don't worry.
Otho's going to tell us
how to get rid of them
for good.
INT: ATTIC -- NIGHT
Dark and quiet. The door is pushed slowly open, and OTHO's round
fat fearful face appears.
OTHO
Yoo-hoo.
Getting no response, OTHO enters the room. He's brought along a
bottle of wine for courage.
He sees the model town in the moonlight, and his curiosity is
peaked for a moment.
OTHO
How quaint. An exact
replica of the dullest
town on earth.
He continues his search of the room. Circling the model, he
trips on something, leans down, and retrieves the HANDBOOK FOR
THE RECENTLY DECEASED.
OTHO
Well, this is interesting.
I wish there were moon light
in here.
As if in answer to his wish, the whorehouse in the model town
bursts into lurid flame. OTHO stares at it a moment, and then
douses the flames with the wine.
INT: CATHY'S BEDROOM -- NIGHT
CATHY has been moved to the bed, and looks a little stronger,
ADAM and BARBARA stand on the opposite side of the bed from the
DEETZs. (In this scene the DEETZs cannot see or hear ADAM and
BARBARA.)
BARBARA
You know we'd never do anything
that would hurt you.
CATHY
I know.
CHARLES
What, honey?
CATHY
I know it wasn't Barbara and
Adam. It was an evil spirit.
ADAM
His name is Beetle Juice.
CATHY
His name is Beetle Juice.
And he's here.
The clock on her mantle begins to chime midnight.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
DELIA'S water clock continues to chime the hour.
GUEST #4
Thank God it's midnight.
Now we can go.
GUEST #5
If Delia has a brain in her
head, she'll stay upstairs.
GUEST #6
It'll be a cold day in hell
before I come back to
Connecticut.
The first guests start for the door. At this moment, the clock
stops chiming. BEETLE JUICE slides down the banister. He's
wearing a magician's top hat and tails, looking like he last
worked the Catskills.
BEETLE JUICE
Pick a card.
He fans the TAROT DECK. No one takes the bait. He turns over
the deck. Every one of the cards is DEATH.
The GUESTS nearest the door turn away in disgust.
GUEST #7
Christ, this is what we've
been waiting for?
GUEST #7 pulls open the front door.
BEETLE JUICE --
points at the door. It slams shut. GUEST #7, with his hand
still on the knob, is hurtled against the door, and slumps
unconscious to the floor.
BEETLE JUICE smiles at the crowd.
BEETLE JUICE
Show time.
EXT: THE HOUSE -- NIGHT
The wind is picking up, blowing the trees, pulling the tent pegs
from the ground. The tent whips high into the air. The barn
door is slammed shut by the force of the gale.
INT: BARN -- NIGHT
TRIXIE and ART CRITIC #2 are making out in the shadow of one of
DELIA's monumental sculptures in steel and feathers. The whole
barn structure creaks with the force of the wind.
TRIXIE
Hey, it's midnight. I
want to see Lydia's ghosts.
Let's go inside.
CRITIC #2
Oh, let's stay out here.
Delia probably just hired
some third-rate magician
who's going to --
AN UNNATURAL GROANING OF METAL --
interrupts the critic. He and TRIXIE look around the dimly-
lighted barn.
TRIXIE
What was that?
CRITIC #2
The wind.
AN OMINOUS DARK SHADOW --
crosses the faces of TRIXIE and CRITIC #2.
They stare at SOMETHING in disbelief.
TRIXIE
Have you got a car? A
fast car?
EXT: BARN -- NIGHT
TRIXIE and CRITIC #2 bolt from the barn door. The wind outside
is even higher than before, nearly knocking them off their feet.
We hear that OMINOUS METALLIC CREAK again. Then --
ONE OF DELIA'S STEEL AND FEATHER SCULPTURES
crashes through the barn door, lumbering forward on its sawhorse-
like legs.
Another SCULPTURE follows immediately in its wake.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The crowd is warily watching as BEETLE JUICE performs a series of
cheap MAGICIAN's tricks. He produces a bunch of garishly-colored
paper flowers from his sleeve, and then pulls a SMALL SINGING
CANARY out of his mouth.
The WELL-DRESSED MATRON (from earlier) is manifestly anxious to
leave.
MATRON
I really do have to leave.
BEETLE JUICE smiles at her. The CANARY perched on his finger is
suddenly transformed into a small, flying dragon.
THE DRAGON leaps at the MATRON, knocking her out of her chair,
and claws at her exposed face until it is kicked off by another
GUEST.
The DRAGON flies back to BEETLE JUICE, perching on his top hat,
and begins to TWITTER.
BEETLE JUICE
You'll leave when I tell
you to.
Behind BEETLE JUICE, we see LYDIA, crouching almost out of sight
at the top of the stairs leading the second floor. Her eyes are
wide, and after a moment, she silently retreats.
INT: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NIGHT
OTHO, carrying the HANDBOOK, half runs, half rolls down the
stairs from the attic. LYDIA flies down the hall from the
opposite direction. The two collide at the door of CATHY's room,
and do a fat man's dance trying to squeeze through the door.
INT: CATHY'S ROOM -- NIGHT
LYDIA and OTHO pop through the door together.
OTHO
Party's over, people. There's
a demon loose in this house.
LYDIA
We've got to get out of here.
DELIA
This is my house. I'm not
leaving.
CHARLES is standing at the window. He glances out.
CHARLES
Holy shit...
DELIA
What is it?
CHARLES POV --
DELIA's sculptures are arranged in a circle around the house.
They rock back and forth impatiently on their sawhorse legs. The
high wind blows their feathers frantically.
BACK TO SCENE --
OTHO
Delia, darling, it's all in
here. (Indicates the Handbook).
His name is Swallowtail.
CATHY
No, it's Beetle juice.
LYDIA
I don't know what his name
is, but he's downstairs right
now. And he just turned a
canary into a dragon.
DELIA
But what does this Bottle
Juice want with us?
CATHY listens a moment to the invisible BARBARA and ADAM.
CATHY
He's going to destroy this
house and kill everybody's
who in it.
DELIA
Like hell he is. We're
gonna fight. We paid cash
for this house.
OTHO
I think you've figured out some-
thing you can do. But Cathy os
going to have to convince her
ghosts to help us.
CHARLES
Why should they help us? They've
been trying to get rid of us since
the day we moved in.
CATHY listens a moment to the invisible ADAM and BARBARA.
CATHY
They'll help. Otho, tell us
what to do.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The GUESTS are fearful, and some of the women are weeping.
BEETLE JUICE is still performing his tricks. He reaches over to
a woman, on the verge of hysteria, and from her ear pulls the
world's biggest and ugliest catterpillar. He drops it into her
drink.
BEETLE JUICE
Hey, this is a party. Why
isn't anybody having fun?
I know. Let's dance.
He looks at the DEETZs sound system. LOUD ROCK MUSIC comes on
instantly.
For a moment, everyone is still.
BEETLE JUICE
Dance, I said.
In the far corner of the room, two guests begin a spasmodic,
frantic dancing. This continues in a wave across the room, until
all the guests are participating in this physical insanity --
crarshing off one another, smashing againt the walls, some of
them flying up to the ceiling and hitting their heads, nose-
diving along the carpets. BEETLE JUICE, with a wicked laugh and
cackle, dances amongst them all.
On the stairway appear, in this order, LYDIA, DELIA, CHARLES
carrying CATHY, and OTHO bringing up the rear.
BEETLE JUICE looks up at them. A wicked smile crosses his face.
BEETLE JUICE
Party's over.
The MUSIC stops. The dancers collapse like puppets whose strings
have been severed.
BEETLE JUICE
Everybody leave.
The windows all shoot up in their frames, smashing frames and
glass.
The doors of the house fly open with crashes.
EXT: HOUSE -- NIGHT
One beat, and then from every door and open window, frantic
GUESTS pour out of the house.
They scatter in all directions in the yard, and chased by DELIA's
lumbering sculptures, they race towards their cars.
It is pandemonium.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
A deadly silence seems to have overtaken the house.
BEETLE JUICE stands in the middle of the empty living room.
BEETLE JUICE
I tell you, you guys sure
know how to throw a party.
The DEETZs just look at him.
BEETLE JUICE
Come closer. I won't bite.
CHARLES looks at OTHO. OTHO gives him the go-ahead. CHARLES
cautiously comes closer, and puts CATHY in a chair immediately in
front of, and facing BEETLE JUICE.
CHARLES
You don't have to do this.
CATHY
I do have to. This house
belongs to us. All of us.
CHARLES retreats. BEETLE JUICE grins. He sprouts an enormous
pair of LEATHER WINGS. His face alters -- and become a truly
malicious mirror of his twisted soul.
BEETLE JUICE
Who are you, little girl?
And what do you have to
say to me?
CATHY doesn't answer.
BEETLE JUICE
Where are your friends?
Hiding out in the attic, I
suppose. Don't worry about
them. Once I've done with
you, I've got a few surprises
in store for our ghosts.
CATHY
As sudden thunder / Pierces night;
As magic wonder / Mad affright
Rives asunder / Men's delight:
Our ghost, our corpse, and we
Rise to be.
CATHY holds out her left hand.
BARBARA suddenly materializes, holding CATHY's hand.
DELIA, CHARLES, OTHO, and LYDIA's eyes widen to the fullest
possible extent.
OTHO
This is it, Delia.
OTHO pushes DELIA forward, and BARBARA reaches out her hand.
After a tiny moment's hesitation, DELIA takes it. She shudders.
CATHY
As flies the lizard / Serpent fell;
As goblin vizard / At the spell
Of pale wizard / Sinks to hell;
The buried, dead, and slain
Rise again.
CATHY holds out her right hand. ADAM materializes, holding it.
CHARLES is already there, and grasps ADAM's hand, after giving
him a quick, appraising glance in the face. Immediately OTHO and
LYDIA complete the circle around BEETLE JUICE.
BEETLE JUICE
Clever people. Who's been
reading the manual? You,
fat boy? I could make you
rich and thin.
OTHO quivers a moment with hesitation, then he stands up
staunchly.
OTHO
Delia, I'd better be in
your will.
BEETLE JUICE flaps his wings, and a wind begins to blow inside
the house, in a clockwise direction. His seven opponents have to
strain to keep the circle together.
EXT: THE HOUSE -- NIGHT
All the guests have fled. The sculptures lie in ruin. The wind
blows ever harder, in a counter-clockwise direction, around the
house.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The wind is even stronger inside the room. The wind is breaking
up the furniture, and spinning around crazily and dangerously.
But the circle remains as if at the eye of a hurricane.
BEETLE JUICE, in an uncustomary moment of panic, throws himself
at the perimeter of the circle, but is hurled back by a bolt of
colored electricity. He's burned.
BEETLE JUICE
I know more tricks than you.
Here, girlie, want to see
what your friends really
look like?
He grins.
ADAM and BARBARA shudder in pain, and at once begin to transform
into mouldering corpses. Their clothing rots, their skin
discolors and peels, mould encrusts their features.
At the same time, the lighting in the center of the circle
continues, and BEETLE JUICE does a spastic dance trying to avoid
the charges. He is burned repeatedly.
DELIA and CHARLES, finding that they are holding hands with
corpses, pull away repulsed and horrified.
CATHY
Don't break the circle.
CHARLES and DELIA screw up their courage, and maintain their
grips on the corpses' hands.
The lightning intensifies inside the circle. Outside the circle,
the wind is like a hurricane, and the rest of the living room is
only a blur.
CATHY, growing weak, starts to faint.
BARBARA CORPSE
(Groaning) Nowwwwww.
Having said this, BARBARA's jaw falls off.
CATHY
Today is a thought
A fear is tomorrow
And yesterday is our sin
And our sorrow
And life is a death.
Dear ghosts, so to die
Is to live --
And like is a worthless lie,
Then we weep for ourselves,
and wish you goodbye.
ADAM and BARBARA's corpses turn a last, lingering glance on
CATHY.
BEETLE JUICE screams in frustration and pain. One last terrific
bolt of colored lightning envelops him, and causes his wings to
burst into lurid flame. He leaps high into the air, smashing
through the ceiling.
ON THE SECOND FLOOR --
BEETLE JUICE, howling, crashes through the floor, and then
through the ceiling here as well.
IN THE ATTIC --
he crashes through the attic floor, and then out through the
roof.
EXT: THE HOUSE -- NIGHT
BEETLE JUICE is A BALL OF FIRE at the top of the whirlwind
surrounding the house. He explodes like a massive display of
fireworks.
Almost instantly, the wind calms down.
INT: LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT
The downstairs walls of the house have been completely
obliterated, leaving only the frame. There is nothing whatever
left of the furnishings. Moonlight shines down through the
vertical holes BEETLE JUICE blasted through the house.
CHARLES
Is everybody all right?
Cathy?
CATHY has collapsed between two small piles of dust and bones and
scraps of cloth, all that is left of ADAM and BARBARA. DELIA
raises a limp CATHY, and after a tense moment, CATHY's eyes
struggle open.
OTHO
There are doors man is not
meant to open. There are
places man is not meant to
tread. I guess Connecticut
is one of them.
LYDIA
They gave up their lives
to save us and the house.
DELIA
They were already dead.
(Beat) But you're right,
they did sacrifice themselves.
CATHY
They can't be dead!
She runs for the stairs.
OTHO is standing beneath the holes in the ceiling, looking up at
the moon.
OTHO
We could think about a
skylight.
But the DEETZs have already started up the stairs, after CATHY.
INT: ATTIC -- NIGHT
In shadows, CATHY stands over the model. Some of it survives,
some it was sheered off in BEETLE JUICE's ascension.
LYDIA, CHARLES, and DELIA come silently into the room, and stand
together, looking at the miniature version of their own home.
CHARLES
We have two choices.
We can stay and try to
put this house together
again. Or we can move
back to New York.
SLOW FADE OUT
SLOW FADE IN:
EXT: HOUSE -- DAY
We hear a CHEERLEADER's voice:
LYDIA
Two Four Six Eight
Winter River's Really Great
LYDIA DEETZ is on the front lawn of the house -- now rempaired,
but with a huge skylight in the middle of the roof. LYDIA is
wearing the WINTER RIVER BADGERS cheerleader uniform, and carries
two pompoms. But she still bears remnants of her DEATH ROCKER
make-up, and wears her finger bone necklace.
In the BACK YARD of the house, CHARLES DEETZ is tending the
replanted orchard. At the same time, he is dictating the fifth
in a series of occult novels, into a Walkman-like dictaphone.
CHARLES
Aghast, I turned to look into
his face. His features had
begun to melt. He was turning
into a corpse before my stunned
but courageous eyes...
INT: LIVING ROOM -- DAY
Repaired, and now decorated by someone with much more taste than
OTHO. But the water clock, in an improved and expanded version,
still holds forth.
CATHY's on her way upstairs carrying a glass of iced tea.
INT: SECOND FLOOR SEWING ROOM -- DAY
The 80's equivalent of BARBARA's sewing room. DELIA is at a work
bench, hard at work on some extremely small object, using a
magnifying glass, and a mini-acetylene torch.
CATHY comes in with the iced tea.
CATHY
You wanted lemon in your
tea, didn't you?
DELIA
Yes. Thank you dear.
Voila. It's done. You
can take it upstairs.
CATHY
(A little uncertainly)
Great.
INT: ATTIC -- DAY
The model town is in the process of being repaired. It is
apparent that this is now CATHY's bedroom.
CATHY takes the small object that DELIA gave her, and takes it
over to the model. With a pair of jewelry pliers she very
carefully sets it on the front porch of the MAITLAND's home.
We get a look at it now, and it's a miniature version of DELIA's
water clock.
EXT: MODEL HOUSE -- DAY
ADAM and BARBARA come out of the front door, and stare at the
water clock. They look up at CATHY.
CATHY
Mom made it for you.
BARBARA starts to say something, but ADAM interrupts her.
ADAM
Tell Delia thank you. What
a wonderful surprise.
CATHY
She wants to know if you'll
need any help placing it.
BARBARA
Tell her we know just what
to do with it.
ADAM and BARBARA go inside the house.
INT: MODEL HOUSE LIVING ROOM -- DAY
It's just like ADAM and BARBARA's house was in the first scene.
ADAM
I know it's just a model
house, and I know we're
ghosts, and we're never
going anywhere else for a
hundred and thirty-two
years -- but I still think
it's heaven.
He closes the door, and after a moment, there is an ominous
vibration. The WATER CLOCK smashes through the window.
BARBARA
Well, it'll have to do until
something better comes along.
END
