13 Scary Thoughts I Had Watching Beetlejuice Growing Up, Because That Sh*t Was Creepy

Given that Barbara is basically the nicest character in the entire film, I never expected to be genuinely terrified of her – that is, until she flicked her eyeballs into her throat and pulled her mouth open like an alligator. Absolutely horrifying!

In an attempt to scare off the Deetz family, Barbara hides in one of the house’s many coat closets, hanging herself from a noose and letting her eyeballs droop right out of her skull – guts and all. Even if Ortho and Delia couldn’t see her lifeless body hanging right in front of them, I sure could, and it’s basically the reason I’m still skeptical of hall closets to this day.

Even though I didn’t know what a caseworker was as a kid, Juno’s inability to directly answer a question and her profound skill at disappearing whenever it was convenient made me uneasy whenever she was on the screen. After my second or third watch of the film, I realized she has a huge slit in her neck (right behind the frills, see?!) that oozes with smoke from the cigarette she’s constantly holding. Dark implications aside, this hidden detail made me even more wary of the afterworld as a kid.

Look, Lydia Deetz might have stood her ground in front of Beetlejuice as a giant snake, but I can guarantee you I would have rolled my way down every flight of stairs if it meant getting away from that ASAP. The piercing, snake-like eyes, and vicious scraggle of teeth weren’t exactly inviting, and there was many a night when I had to run down the hallway for a glass of water and back after seeing this scene.

I felt so bad for Barbara and Adam when they started to waste away in their wedding clothes, their skin wrinkling and turning gray as they started to fall apart. But, as sad as I was for them, I was still mortified at the idea of either of them appearing in my house at night in a state of zombie-like distress, crawling toward me with their bony fingers and sunken out eye sockets. No, thank you.

Beetlejuice was a pretty sketchy guy in general, and the fact that he could spin his head around 360 degrees and throw his voice into other people’s bodies didn’t make him seem any friendlier. Still, it wasn’t until he used a candy bar to lure a house fly over to his miniature grave and then proceeds to eat it that I was truly repulsed by him. HE. HAD. CANDY. As a kid, choosing a fly over a sweet treat like that was totally unforgivable.

It took me more than a few watches to finally notice this one, but ICYMI, there’s an undead audience of skeletons and people seemingly dressed in costumes watching the same movie scenes that we are – but from the other side. I’m still a little confused about whether this movie theater full of people implies that we, the audience, are dead, too. Either way, this creepy detail still gets me every time.

When I was a kid, sand was everywhere – on the playground, in my sneakers, and sometimes even in my hair. So, ignoring the fact that I didn’t live next to a desert or anywhere near Saturn, I was petrified at the idea of a giant, claymation sandworm with razor-sharp teeth popping out of the sandbox to swallow me whole – so mission achieved, I guess, Tim Burton.

If it weren’t for the fact that I read the title of the movie, I would have been right with Lydia when she was trying to guess Beetlejuice’s name. As weird as I thought his name was, it all made sense when I saw that his pockets and clothes were literally crawling with bugs – probably snacks for later, yuck.

Taking a number in a waiting room and sitting in a tiny, uncomfortable chair for what seems like eternity is nothing compared to actually sitting in a waiting room for an eternity. That’s exactly what Barbara and Alan had to do, and they were surrounded by other dead people who looked to have it even worse off than they did. From the man with the shrunken head to the charred cigarette smoker and the woman who was literally cut in half, I had plenty of reason never to want to visit another waiting room again.

Beetlejuice had its fair share of chilling moments balanced out by a few scenes that were absolutely hilarious, and then there were moments like this that had me questioning whether I was even allowed to be watching this movie at all. When Beetlejuice dances his way over to the Inferno Room – a gentleman’s club that used the devil’s mouth as an entrance – even I got the hint as a kid that this was not a place I wanted to be.

All in all, this movie may not have been entirely kid-friendly, but it was (and still is) one of my absolute Halloween favorites.