Beetlejuice (1988)
Quotes
Bernard: Otho, I didn't realize you were into the supernatural.
Otho: Well, of course! You remember, after my stint with the Living Theatre I was one of New York City's leading paranormal researchers until the bottom dropped out in '72.
Beryl: [cynically] Paranormal - is that what they're calling your kind these days?
Otho: Don't mind her. She's still upset because somebody dropped a house on her sister.
Adam: What are your qualifications?
Beetlejuice: Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?
Adam: You can see us without the sheets?
Lydia: Of course I can see you.
Adam: Well, how is it you see us and nobody else can?
Lydia: Well, I've read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says: 'live people ignore the strange and unusual". I myself am strange and unusual.
Barbara: You look like a regular girl to me.
[why he can't tell Lydia his name]
Beetlejuice: Because if I tell you, you'll tell your friends, your friends are callin' me on the horn all the time, I gotta show up at shopping centers for openings and sign autographs and shit like that and it makes my life a *hell*. Okay? A living hell.
Very Dumb Football Player: [the football players have re-entered Juno's office] Coach?
Juno: What?
Very Dumb Football Player: [looking disturbed] I don't think we survived that crash.
Juno: [sarcastically] How did you guess?
Beetlejuice: [after kicking down a model tree] Nice fuckin' model!
Beetlejuice: Go ahead, make my millennium.
Lydia: Mr. and Mrs. Maitland? Hello? Where are you?
Beetlejuice: Dead. Dead, dead, deadski.
Lydia: Of course they're dead. They're ghosts.
Beetlejuice: No, I mean they're gone, split, out of here, afterlife kids, deceased...
Lydia: Are you a ghost, too?
Beetlejuice: I'm a ghost with the most, babe.
Beetlejuice: Let's turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.
Dumb Football Player: Coach. Coach, where's the men's room?
Juno: I'm not your coach! He survived!
Very Dumb Football Player: Wait, Coach, let me get something straight. What's our curfew around here?
Juno: Will you get out of here! Go on, get downstairs! "'Men's room!" Are you kidding? Can't you read signs?
Beetlejuice: [after Lydia says his name three times] It's showtime!
Beetlejuice: [Trying to get Lydia to guess his name, he makes a beetle appear] Hi! How are ya' ?
Lydia: [Gasps] Ah, B-Beetle!
Beetlejuice: Yes! Now for part two...
Lydia: [Conjures a glass of orange juice that pours into a glass] Beetle... Breakfast... Orange... Liquid... Beetle Juice?
Beetlejuice: Yes! You said it!
Lydia: Your name's "Beetle Juice"?
Beetlejuice: You said it two times, come on. Say it one more time!
Lydia: It was you.
Beetlejuice: Me?
Lydia: The snake.
Beetlejuice: No, what snake? You kids and your imaginations... Look, just say it!
Lydia: No... I want to talk to Barbara.
Beetlejuice: No, you don't need to talk to Barbara. JUST SAY IT!
[Evaluating her new home]
Delia: A little gasoline... blowtorch... no problem.
Beetlejuice: [finishing his used-car style commercial] And remember...
[sings and hops back and forth]
Beetlejuice: I'll eat anything you want me to eat. I'll swallow anything you want me to swallow. But, come on down and I'll... chew on a dog! Arroooo!
Beetlejuice: [to Lydia, about the owner of the finger he pulled out of a wedding ring] I'm tellin' ya, honey, she meant nothin' to me. Nothin' at all!
Beetlejuice: Attention K-Mart shoppers.
Barbara: [after Jane did not hear Adam call her] She didn't see you, right?
Adam: Unh-uh.
Barbara: [reading the handbook] In the book: "Rule Number Two: the living usually won't see the dead".
Adam: 'Won't' or 'can't'?
Barbara: It just says 'won't'. God, this book is so stupid. I can't understand anything in it.
[Adam takes the book and closes it]
Adam: Barb, honey... we're dead. I don't think we have very much to worry about anymore.
[in the waiting room of the afterlife]
Barbara: Adam, is this what happens when you die?
Receptionist: This is what happens when *you* die.
[points at a gaunt man smoking]
Receptionist: That is what happens when *he* dies.
[points at a woman cut in half on the sofa reading]
Receptionist: And that is what happens when *they* die. It's all very personal. And I'll tell you something: if I knew then what I know now...
[shows her slit wrists]
Receptionist: ...I wouldn't have had my little accident.
[the dead people laugh]
Preacher: And you, do you, Lydia, take this man...?
Lydia: [Interrupting] No! Beetle...
Beetlejuice: [covers Lydia's mouth with his hand] She's a little bit nervous. Uh, maybe I should answer for her, okay?
[speaks in Lydia's voice]
Beetlejuice: I'm Lydia Deetz and I'm of sound mind. The man next to me is the one I want. You asked me, I'm answering. Yes, I love that man of mine.
Beetlejuice: I'm feeling a little, ooh, anxious if you know what I mean. It's been about six hundred years after all. I wonder where a guy, an everyday Joe like myself, can find a little action...
[a brothel appears]
Beetlejuice: [dances with joy] Hey, Adam, nice move!
Barbara: Adam, why did you build that?
Adam: I didn't!
[Adam and Barbara appear at Juno's office]
Juno: The whorehouse was my idea! I want you to get Beetlejuice out of the picture!
Beetlejuice: [as Otho tries to escape] Not so fast, round boy. We're gonna have some laughs!
[he dresses Otho up in horrible, conventional clothes]
Juno: [as Adam and Barbara come back to the afterlife] You two have really screwed up! I received word that you allowed yourselves to be photographed, and you let Betelgeuse out and didn't put him back, and you let Otho get hold of the handbook!
Adam: Handbook? When?
Juno: [rolls her eyes] Never trust the living! We cannot have a routine haunting like yours provide proof that there is existence beyond death.
Preacher: Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?
Beetlejuice: [Runs off to the side mumbling to himself] Oh geez, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of a big decision isn't it? I mean, I always said if I ever did it, I was gonna do it once and that was it. Oh, well.
[Runs back to the altar and stands next to Lydia]
Beetlejuice: Sure, yeah. Go ahead.
Otho: [while Lydia shows them the attic] Fabulous. 'Otho Fenlock's Locked Door Ghosts' Probably committed suicide up there. I'm totally enchanted.
Delia: They're in there? They must live like animals.
Charles: It's locked. How'd they get in?
Delia: [bangs on the door] Open this door, you dead people, or we'll bust it down and we'll drag you out by the ropes you hang yourselves with!
Lydia: Shh! They didn't commit suicide.
Delia: It doesn't matter. Lydia, I have a chance to teach you something here: you have got to take the upper hand in all situations or people, whether they're dead or alive, will walk all over you.
Beetlejuice: [as a snake] We've come for your daughter, Chuck.
Beetlejuice: These aren't my rules. Come to think of it, I don't have any rules.
Adam: Can you be scary?
Beetlejuice: Oh, thanks for asking
[turns around, imitates jerking-off]
Beetlejuice: . Can I be scary? What do you think of this?
[makes a horrific image we don't see]
Beetlejuice: You like it?
[last lines]
[in the waiting room, Betelgeuse is sitting next to a witch doctor who is next in line]
Beetlejuice: Pardon me. Did you do that?
[points to an explorer with a shrunken head]
Beetlejuice: That's very nice work. Let me ask you something. How do you get them so sma...? Hey, there goes Elvis! Yo, King!
[as the doctor looks away, Betelgeuse switches numbers]
Beetlejuice: Well, looks like I'm next. Good thing, too. I gotta do a photo shoot for GQ in about an hour and a half. Yeah, they've been after me for months. Doin' some underwear deal. I don't know what...
[the witch doctor sprinkles some powder on Betelgeuse's head which starts it shrinking]
Beetlejuice: [voice getting higher as head gets smaller] Whoa, hey! What are you doing? Hey, stop it! Hey, you're messing up my hair! C'mon! Whoa! Whoa! Stop it! Whoa! Hey, this might be a good look for me.
Adam: Cabin fever, hon?
Barbara: Well, I can't clean anything properly. The vacuum's out in the garage and we can't leave the house. Why don't they tell us something? I mean, where are all the other dead people in the world? Why is it just you and me?
Adam: Maybe this is heaven.
Barbara: In heaven there wouldn't be dust on everything.
Lydia: Are you the guys hiding out in the attic?
Adam: We're ghosts!
Lydia: What do you look like under there?
Adam: Aren't you scared?
Lydia: I'm not scared of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you "Night of the Living Dead" under there? Like all bloody veins and pus?
Adam: Night of the what?
Lydia: Living Dead. It's a movie.
Barbara: You know, if I had seen a ghost at your age I would have been scared out of my wits.
Beetlejuice: I gotta card around here, somewhere. Here, here. Who do I have to kill? Here hold that for me, would ya?
[hands Barbara a rat]
Barbara: Whoa! AHH!
Beetlejuice: There. There ya go.
Adam: You don't have to kill anybody!
Beetlejuice: Ah, possession! Good.
Barbara: [In Betelgeuse's voice] Learn to throw your voice! Fool your friends! Fun at parties!
Adam: [In a decomposed state and trying to say Beetlejuice's name three times] BEH...
[his mouth falls out]
Lydia: [while eating Cantonese food] I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that's in this food.
Beetlejuice: I'm just doin' my job. Besides, I thought we had a deal! Hey, it's OK. You know why? I don't wanna do business with you deadbeats anyway. The only one I think I can deal with is Edgar Allan Poe's daughter. I think she understands me.
Beetlejuice: You know, you look like somebody I can relate to. Maybe you could help me get out of here, you know, because I got to tell you, this dead thing... it's just too creepy. See, here's my problem. I got these friends I said I'd meet, and it's the kind of thing where I have to be there in person, so could you help me get out of here?
Lydia: I want to get in.
Beetlejuice: Why?... You know, hey, you probably got your reasons. I can't do anything from here. If you could get me out, then maybe we could talk or something.
[reading The Handbook for the Living and the Dead]
Charles: This thing reads like stereo instructions.
[Harry Belafonte's "Shake Shake Senora" plays in the background]
Charles: Oh, sounds like Lydia got an "A" on the math test.
[a head sculpture of the Betelgeuse snake appears next to him]
Charles: Jeez!
[Charles falls out of his chair. Delia pulls the sculpture up and smiles]
Delia: He likes it.
[repeated line]
Barbara: Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse.
Beetlejuice: *That* is why I won't do two shows a night anymore, babe, I won't.
Beetlejuice: Let's see, business section.
[he flips to the obituary page of a newspaper]
Beetlejuice: Ooh la la. What do we got here? The Maitlands, uh? Cute couple. Look nice and stupid, too.
Delia: This is my art, and it is dangerous! Do you think I want to die like this?
Beetlejuice: [to Charles and Delia] Mom, Dad. I just want you two to know, you're welcome at our house anytime you want to come over. In the meantime, the dowry's on me, dad.
[gives Charles a handful of snakes]
Barbara: What about that guy in the flyer, you know Betel...
Juno: Shhh! Don't even say his name! You don't want his help!
Adam: We might.
Juno: No, you don't! He does not work well with others.
Barbara: What do you mean?
Juno: I didn't want to bring it up, but rather than have you stumble on to it and make another mistake, I'll tell you. He was my assistant, but he was a troublemaker. Went out on his own as a freelance bio-exorcist. Claimed he could get rid of the living. Got into more trouble. In fact, I believe he's been sleazing around your cemetery lately. The only way he can be brought back is by calling his name three times. But I strongly suggest you get the Deetzes out by yourselves.
Delia: Charles, I will not stop living and breathing art just because you need to relax.
Charles: Ha.
Delia: I'm here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don't let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane, AND I WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME!
Charles: [after a long pause] Yeah, well, you know, maybe the house could use a little remodeling. Uh... But, why don't you just leave this room alone, okay?
Delia: [smiles] Okay.
[Delia and Otho leave as Charles goes furious]
Barbara: [furiously] I'm gonna get her.
Otho: [enters a room with Barbara holding up Adam's severed head] Ugh. Deliver me from L.L. Bean.
[In the afterlife waiting room]
Receptionist: Number fifty-four million six hundred and one... Ferndoch.
[Head spins wildly and begins shrieking]
Beetlejuice: Don't you hate it when that happens?
Otho: Oh, you family types, you got other things to worry about. Maxie Dean's coming up here tonight. You got to figure out a way to sell these ghosts. I can only do so much.
Charles: What are you gonna do, Otho, viciously rearrange their enviroment?
Otho: I know just as much about the supernatural as I do about interior design.
Barbara: [to Adam] What's the good of being a ghost if you can't frighten people away?
Beetlejuice: You want to get somebody out of your house. I want to get somebody out of your house.
Beetlejuice: Oh, yeah. Here I am come, baby.
Lydia: [Lydia hears wild moaning through the wall and assumes it's her stepmother Delia] God, how can you stand that woman...
Barbara: What's wrong?
Lydia: Beetle...
Barbara: Shhh!
Lydia: HE told me that if I could let him out, he would take me to the other side to find you.
Barbara: Lydia, we're dead.
Lydia: Well, I want to be dead too.
Barbara: No! Lydia, being dead really doesn't make things any easier.
Adam: Listen to her on this, Lydia, this is something we know a lot about!
[a fly appears in the Maitland home, it flies onto the model of the town, then lands near the graveyard area]
Beetlejuice: [pops out of a crack] Hey! Hey, you! Hey, come here!
[fly stops, looks Betelgeuse's direction while the hands hold up a Zagnut candy bar]
Beetlejuice: Got something good for ya... Here, boy. Wanna come on over? Have a bite?Want something to nosh?
[enticed by the bar, the fly comes closer, quite hesitant...]
Beetlejuice: [laughs] Come here!
[grabs the fly and pulls him into the crack, throws the Zagnut aside]
The Fly: Help me! Help me! Help meeeee!
[a burp is heard]
[Adam and Barbara struggle to understand the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased"]
Barbara: I hate this. Just can you give me the basics?
Adam: Well, this book isn't arranged that way. What do you wanna know?
Barbara: Well, why did you disappear when you stepped off the porch? Are we halfway to heaven? Are we halfway to hell? And... how long is this gonna last?
Adam: I don't see anything about heaven OR hell. This book reads like stereo instructions. Listen to this: "Geographical and temporal perimeters. Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation.
[Snaps book shut]
Adam: Oh, this is gonna take some time, honey.
Lydia: If you are real ghosts, you guys better get another routine because those sheets, they don't work.
Juno: Okay, have you been studying the manual?
Adam: Well, we tried.
Juno: The intermediate interface chapter on haunting says it all: get them out yourselves, it's your house. Haunted houses aren't easy to come by.
Barbara: Well, we don't quite get it.
Juno: I heard. Tore your faces right off. It obviously doesn't do any good to pull your heads off in front of people if they can't see you!
Adam: We should start more simply then?
Juno: Start simply, do what you know, use your talents, practice! You should have been studying those lessons since day one.
Charles: Nice building... bad roof... goooood parking.
[Adam and Barbara make it back home as the sandworm is about to eat them]
Barbara: [crying, hugs Adam] Oh, Adam! We're trapped in this house with those people!
Delia: [talking to a workman] If you tell me what you do, I'll tell you why my husband will fire you.
Delia: [as Bernard, Grace, and Beryl leaves not convinced of the ghost] This was not a hallucination. This was real. We all just experienced a super-powerful, paranormal experience, and it was real.
Bernard: Delia, you are a flake. You have always been a flake. If you insist on frightening people, do it with your sculpture.
[Bernard slams the door as he leaves]
Charles: Drive carefully!
Delia: [aghast] I'm dead.
Barbara: [to Adam] Maybe we should try that Beetle guy.
Lydia: They wanted me to dissect a frog, I told them it was against my religion.
Beetlejuice: [Trying to get Lydia to say his name three times] No, you don't need to talk to Barbara. Just SAY IT!
Lydia: [On Otho's seance] Wait... what am I worried about, Otho, you can't even change a tire.
Jane Butterfield: This house is so big. It really ought to belong to people who have children.
Juno: [at the Maitland home] Things seem pretty quiet. Thank God you didn't die in Italy.
Delia: Kids. You know, I love them.
Juno: So, I don't care what it takes! You get the Deetz's out of there now!
[Barbara and Adam stand up, getting ready to leave]
Juno: Ooh, wait!
[They sit back down]
Juno: What are you going to do?
[No response]
Juno: To scare them! I want to make sure it's not some silly parlor trick.
Adam: I'll go first, honey.
[Barbara nods and mouths the word "Okay", as Adam takes off his glasses and contorts his face into a hideous, grotesque new face, while plucking out his eyes and using them for fingers]
Juno: Not bad, not bad.
[Points over to Barbara]
Juno: Now, you.
[Barbara hesitates]
Juno: Go ahead.
[Barbara thinks for a minute, then rolls her eyes all the back, pops them to the back of her head, then grotesquely pulls contorts her face to hideous feature, with mouth wide open and her eyes appearing in the back of her throat]
Juno: Okay... you look great! Now, go clean house and don't forget the photographs and the damn handbook!
[They get up and leave as the football players return]
Very Dumb Football Player: Coach?
Juno: What?
Very Dumb Football Player: I don't think we survived that crash?
Juno: [Sarcastically] How did you guess?
