"BEETLEJUICE" (1988)

Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson

A crisp and perfect New England town. Almost too neat to be real. No visible townspeople. CAMERA EXPLORES town.

To the Maitland house. The perfect Victorian house surveying the tiny village. Suddenly --

A GIANT DADDY LONGLEGS SPIDER

mounts the crest of the hill beside the house, pauses to wave a spindly leg and then creeps menacingly on top of the Maitland house.

A hand -- as big as God's -- with a huge tweezer, gently reaches down out of the sky and lies, palm up, in the yard next to the house. Daddy Longlegs climbs into it. The hand rises into the sky again.

Reveals Winter River as a miniature town, while The Daddy Longlegs and the hand are normal size. Above the model are a homely representation of moon, sun, and stars -- a whole, tiny, mechanical universe to track the hours of the day. A large plat map of the city is prominent on the wall.

The hand is ADAM MAITLAND'S. In his late 30's, he's a solid easy-going citizen. Capra used to make movies about him.

Adam's model town sprawls across most of the attic space. Windows on either end of the attic shed good light into the warm room. Adam very carefully lifts the spider out the open window. Smiles as he drips him lightly on the breeze.

CAMERA TILTS UP FROM THE WINDOW

To see the real Winter River, laid out exactly as the

TB model, at the foot of the hill. Adam breathes deeply and looks very pleased at the glorious town below him.

ON HIS HUGE HAND AGAIN

as it reaches into model and tweezes a tiny sign into the tiny window of Maitland's Hardware Store on main street. It reads:

Adam leans down and eyes the sign.

Adam turns to see entering: BARBARA MAITLAND, 35 -- a wholesome beauty who is mellowing well. She smiles at him. Perhaps a certain tinge of sadness about her, because they don't have children.

She pushes a wrapped present across the table.

Adam smiles and gives her a present he's hidden under the table. He opens his present. A can of furniture oil.

TB wardrobe...

Adam hands Barbara a carefully-wrapped bundle -- she unwraps her gift... rolls of very expensive floral wallpaper. She cradles it in her arms like gold leaf.

Adam nods, and embraces her.

Barbara calms down, returning to Adam's embrace... as:

PHONE RINGS -- They freeze, then grin.

ADAM & BARBARA (unison) No one's home!

HONK HONK outside. They look at each other horrified. Peer out the window.

She shakes her head with resignation and goes downstairs. KNOCKING on door from below.

CAMERA FOLLOWS Adam and Barbara downstairs. We see the rambling, old fashioned quality to the house.

Clean, sentimental, warm and floral. Some rooms in progress. They continue down the main staircase past photos of themselves, old photos of the early days of Winter River, pictures and mementos of three generations in hardware. Barbara goes to the kitchen

TB and Adam continues down to the basement.

HER POV - A WOMAN

JANE BUTTERFIELD -- tall, gawky and aggressive peeks in the kitchen door. She's divorced three husbands and buried another for good measure. She's ruthless but is weirdly, seamlessly pleasant. She waves a legal sized paper at them, starts to come inside.

Barbara makes dash for it and holds it just as Jane gets a foot in. Jane smiles wildly.

That hurts Barbara a little. She looks at Jane.

Jane compulsively affixes her business card, face inside. in the windowpane.

Barbara is starting to paper the walls already. She frowns at the MUSIC. Goes to the door.

It CLICKS OFF. She goes back into the room.

Adam puts away the tape but keeps humming the song. He opens the shutters on a small window. ON WINDOW...

He jumps back, frightened.

Adam closes the shutters as Jane affixes yet another card to the window. He continues his search for a brush.

JANE

TB exits jauntily, flapping her contract down the lawn.

Adam continues rummaging for a brush. Can't find it.

Barbara has already papered a few rolls in the guest room.

The Victorian house from the model "in the flesh." Adam stands by the station wagon.

On the bumper of the car is a sticker reading: WARNING: I BRAKE FOR ANIMALS.

Barbara gets in driver's side. They drive off.

Adam dusts the inside of the dashboard. Clean Clean.

Puts his hand on her shoulder.

TB We see the car coming down the hill toward the bridge.

Car reaches the rickety covered bridge. Car shakes, bobbing up and down on every plank.

ON Barbara and Adam TIGHT -- (they've done this routine before). They sing an old Johnny Mathis song. With a lot of vibrato.

They laugh.

Just like the model, but real. And populated.

CAMERA PAUSES ON a gorgeous storefront with a brass lion out front. Sign above doors says --

Ernie looks around to see no one's looking and polishes the balls of the lion.

CAMERA SPIES A JAUNTY DOG

TB like Benji, peeing on the opposite corner of the lion. Maitlands drive by store with sign:

DAY

The store is bursting with antiques of all sorts, travel brochures, photographs of houses for sale, and a serve-yourself Xerox machine. LITTLE JANE, her eight- year-old daughter is drudgingly making copies.

Jane, phone in hand, rushes to the window to watch Maitlands drive by. Almost popping the cord when it reaches its end. She's waiting for the other party to pick up.

Adam sprints up the steps of his lovely hardware store. OLD BILL, a slightly-addled ancient barber, is napping in a chair in front of his shop, next door to Adam's. Adam fumbles with the lock, not interested in conver- sation. He drops his keys, waking Old Bill.

Bill turns around and continues prattling even though Adam has entered. Bill prattles throughout.

TB 1835 but y'know his grandson came

in here last week and said he found a bottle with an 1836 stamp in it plastered in the foundation. (suddenly disgusted at the memory) He's got hair down to his goddamned shoulders...

Adam pulls down a few good paintbrushes and carefully picks up a small model of the Bozman building. He walks out. Old Bill continues unabated.

Adam strides by quickly to the car.

The Maitlands drive their car out of town.

ON JANE

Car approaches.

Five brushes sit on the seat next to Adam. He cradles small replica of the Bozman building, complete with brass lion.

Barbara starts to apply the brakes.

Just before the bridge the dog waddles out in the road. Stops to pee. Barbara swerves. As the car hits the rickety bridge, the speed is just a bit too much.

Boards RATTLE and loosen, the car skews and catches in an open slot, careens to the right, then the left and the bridge.

A piling has smashed through the window on the pas- senger side, crushing the upper part of Barbara's arm. She is wailing in pain and fright.

Adam tries to help Barbara. He tries to get out of the car. None of this succeeds.

The dog finishes, looks over at the car, walks across the bridge and steps on the one board which holds the car aloft.

The car rocks back and forth for a moment, and then slides forward toward the water.

The car plunges into the rushing water. It floats for a moment, and then sinks like a stone.

FADE IN:

TB INT. BARBARA AND ADAM'S LIVING ROOM - DAY

Quiet, still, expectant. There is a fire laid in the hearth. Suddenly and for no apparent reason it ignites and burns with a furious cheerfulness.

Barbara and Adam enter, dazed, wet, and bedraggled.

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.

She holds her arms out to warm them. One hand catches on fire.

They are sitting on the couch together. Barbara is looking away slightly -- as one does when a doctor is drawing blood -- while Adam looks at her fingers. He frowns.

He looks at his skin. It is pale. He looks at

TB Barbara.

Adam gets up, a little absently, she follows him as he wanders to the front door. He peers out.

Barbara tests her hand, clenches and unclenches her fist.

Adam, exploring, opens the door, steps out on the front porch.

Adam's face is painted with color of sunset. He stands atop the steps leading down to the front yard. Barbara stands just inside the open threshold, looking out worriedly.

Adam starts to step down to the yard.

He steps off the last step into the yard and promptly disappears.

TB BARBARA

Adam!

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 surprised, doesn't like what he doesn't see. He turns around to head back up the steps. There are no steps.

His VOICE ECHOES STRANGELY. He runs off a little in the distance, and calls again from over there.

He goes even farther away.

Adam runs forward and stares after the wheel, which is now out of sight.

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.

TB EXT. FRONT PORCH - NIGHT

It's Barbara who's grabbed him, and quite evidently saved his life -- not life, perhaps -- but existence. He's shaken, breathless.

Barbara stares at him, as if wondering what he's just been through.

Barbara leads Adam into the house.

Barbara picks up one of the horses, and trots it through the air. The horse is imaged in the mirror.

She picks up an ancient, leather-bound book. It's yellow and worn, about the size of the Boy Scout manual.

TB CLOSEUP: Its title is HANDBOOK FOR THE RECENTLY DECEASED.

Adam is already in bed, reading from the handbook. Barbara is getting ready for bed -- going through a ritual of sorts that they practiced every night of their married lives.

TB perimeters vary from manifestation

to manifestation." This is going to take some time.

They look at each other, the question hangs in the air. Can't they?

Adam stands and walks to the window.

She looks at him like he's nuts.

She shakes her head, exasperated. Flops down on the bed.

ON ADAM - TIGHT - a somber look comes across his face.

Barbara looks up at him, questioningly.

She stands and joins him at the window.

THEIR POV THROUGH THE WINDOW

In the distance we see an automobile funeral procession threading its way toward the nearby cemetery. Head-

TB lights are on. We recognize Jane's car in the line.

REVERSE ON BARBARA AND ADAM

somber faces.

FADE IN:

Adam is setting up a small monument in the model town cemetery. It reads: ADAM AND BARBARA MAITLAND/UNITED IN LIFE/UNDIVIDED IN DEATH.

Barbara, trying to clean, lets out a frustrated YELP! She paces.

TB dusty walls)

In heaven there wouldn't be dust on the wallpaper.

Barbara shakes her head and picks up the Handbook and pages through it desperately.

CAR DOOR SLAMS outside. Adam and Barbara look at one another. Run to window.

Jane Butterfield is staring up at the old house.

Adam, from his angle, can just barely see her.

Unhearing, Jane heads for car. SOUND OF WIND UP. Blows her dress. Little Jane straggles along with her like an apprentice.

TB

Barbara watches Adam, and shakes her head. He stops.

Adam nods.

Barbara sighs and nods.

Adam smiles and goes to his model.

Jane drives away. CAMERA HINGES to see a FOR SALE sign. Across it -- another smaller banner. It reads: SOLD!

The Maitlands are asleep. CAMERA EXPLORES the room a bit. It is getting slightly tatty. Adam rolls over, pulling the covers off Barbara. We see:

ON BARBARA -- she is hovering off the side of the bed.

An OMINOUS RUMBLE -- like a 4.0 earthquake shakes the house. GLASS RATTLES, the ceramic horses on the mantelpiece jump around. Barbara falls to the floor. They look at one another with horror. They leap up and

TB run downstairs.

The RUMBLE BUILDS TO A CLIMAX, there is a LOUD METALLIC SQUEAL, and then a CRASH... just as Barbara and Adam arrive.

A TEN-FOOT ELECTRIC-BLUE ITALIAN LEATHER COUCH

slides smoothly down the ramp. On the couch sits DELIA DEETZ.

The couch CRASHES into the base of the staircase, smashing the newel post and several of the balusters. Barbara cringes. 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 is relentlessly New York, relentlessly fashion- able, relentlessly thin -- totally self assured.

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).

Still holding the baluster, Delia gets up off the couch and moves into the living room, surveying it with an odd mixture of ambition, and resolution.

Lydia, age 14, is a pretty girl, but wan, pale and overly-dramatic, dressed as she is in her favorite color, black. She's a combination of a little death rocker and an 80's version of Edward Gorey's little

TB girls.

She has a couple of expensive cameras around her neck -- and is already taking photographs of the moving men. Lydia is cool, Lydia is sullen, Lydia is her father's daughter by his first marriage. Lydia is usually about half-pissed off. But underneath... we like her a lot.

The Moving Men still hold up the chair, waiting for Delia to decide where she wants it.

TIGHT ON Lydia -- calmly surveys the house.

Delia signals wearily that the Moving Men can put the chair down anywhere.

Lydia hops down out of the chair, and comes farther into the living room.

That's the cue for CHARLES DEETZ, who comes in through the swinging door, and across the dining room... a ner- vous but basically pleasant man, CHARLES DEETZ is intent on attacking rest and relaxation with the same vengeance that earned him millions in real estate.

CAMERA HINGES -- She is standing with her back right up to Barbara -- who is horrified at this creature.

Charles enters.

Lydia gazes at a dusty maze of spider webs.

A movement makes Lydia turn around and scream. It is Delia. Not Barbara.

A VIOLENT FALSETTO SCREAM turns the Deetz family's attention to the front windows.

Otho's voice comes as if from a great distance.

Delia turns to Charles and Lydia for help -- doesn't get it -- and at last pulls Otho into the living room single-handedly.

TB 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 nasty emotional weight as well.

Otho is looking around the room with an eye of quiet horror.

He exits to find solace in a quiet corner of his house. During this speech, Otho has been surreptitiously pos- ing for Lydia's camera. She clicks the shutter.

Out of the pockets of his size 56 Georgia 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.

At one end, near the stairs leading up to the attic, Barbara and Adam are slumped against opposite walls.

Barbara looks at him.

Barbara is shocked at the reality.

Otho and Delia come up the stairs at the end of the hallway.

DeLia turns and spray-paints on the wall -- in luminous orange -- the word MAUVE.

Delia opens the door and they step inside another room.

It's not Lydia's room yet, of course, because it still has the Maitlands' furniture in it. Barbara had partly wallpapered it before the accident. Her tools are still there.

Otho spray-paints the word VIRIDIAN on the wall -- plus the word BLUE GREEN -- and Cr2 03, right over a picture of Adam and Barbara as kids.

Delia smiles. Behind Delia and Otho, the room's closet door swings slowly open with and ominous CREAK.

Delia and Otho stare aghast.

He walks over. Looks inside.

He finds, neatly hung in plastic, the Maitlands' wedding outfits. Totally captivated by this powerful image, he peers through the plastic at them. Holding each up to Delia. Barbara watches wide-eyed at them.

Delia and Otho come out of Lydia's bedroom and go through the bathroom. Disgusted, they continue on to the study.

ANGLE

There is one slight difference, however, because on the rag rug in the middle of the floor lies Adam's headless corpse. 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. Behind them, Charles is thumbing through Adam's Audubon collection. He sits up like a cornered animal protect- ing his territory.

Outside, Delia is shaking her head.

TB aesthetic instincts of Betty

Crocker.

They head up the stars to the attic.

Adam's head has a look of terror on it.

Adam's headless body jumps up off the floor and rushes out of the room.

Otho and Delia climbing. The headless corpse careens past them, around the bend in the stairs and out of sight.

Delia shakes her head.

The expression on Otho's face suggests he knows more

TB than he's telling.

The headless corpse rushes through the open door into the attic.

The headless corpse slams the door shut, turns the key in the lock. Then he slumps against the locked door in an exaggerated stance of relief.

Delia tries the knob. The door is locked.

Barbara still holding Adam's head.

Charles still calmly leafing through the Audubons.

Barbara distractedly puts Adam's head on a bookshelf. His headless body fumbles with the books and finally reattaches the head.

Barbara, fuming, moves around Charles making wild gestures.

She storms out of the room.

Barbara storms in, as if straight from the room up- stairs. She heads straight for the back door. Just as she opens the door, Adam rushes up.

She flings open the door and steps outside. She promptly disappears.

Barbara plunges into the dusty surface of Titan with an enormous Saturn looming in the sky. She looks around with wonder and some fear.

She turns slowly in the yellow dense sand that covers the surface of this distant moon.

Adam is trudging towards her. Behind him, hovering isolated in the air, is the kitchen door.

The Something follows them and rises out of the sand.

TB sink in the sand.

They make it to the door just in time, swing it open and hurl themselves through. The door shuts with a BANG just in front of the ROARING SANDWORM.

Barbara, weeping, throws herself in Adam's arms.

She hugs him tight.

Both contemplate that horror.

They head for the dining room.

The Deetz's around the dining room table. There are candles and good china laid out-- but they're eating out of Chinese take-out boxes.

Delia rolls her eyes and nods. She's been through this before.

Delia laughs. Charles smiles.

Delia stares at Lydia.

Delia shifts her glare to Charles.

OUTSIDE THE DOOR - ON THE STAIRS

-- listening, sit Barbara and Adam. A tear rolls down her face.

Adam and Barbara are lying down on the floor, peering out of one of the small windows overlooking the front yard of the house. The handbook open in front of them.

The entire front yard is alive with workmen and their vehicles. Plumbers, electricians, cable TV men, etc. In the road on front of the house are several cars of rubbernecking locals, astonished by all the activity. The City has come to Town. Moving men continue to move in the Deetz' modern, expensive and ugly furniture. They collide with Goodwill men coming out with the Maitlands' lovely antiques and personal possessions.

Adam and Barbara just look at one another as if to say "We're next!" Adam leafs through the handbook furi- ously.

Adam pulls from the book an ancient, yellowed, crumbling handbill. He carefully opens it.

ON handbill -- very primitive, crude, red printing.

The remainder of the sheet is torn off.

TB ON Barbara -- fingering the torn edge. Looking in the book for the remainder. No luck.

Charles, away from the chaos outside is calmly steeping a mug of herb tea. His solitude is interrupted by a 2500 lb. Vulcan range breaking through a too-small kitchen window.

Lydia catches sight of Jane and runs over.

TB Little Jane locks her door, in fear of Lydia-the strange. Lydia stares at her.

Jane hands a key to Lydia.

Jane goes away.

Lydia drops the skeleton key into her pocket surrepti- tiously. She follows Delia's SHRIEKING.

Lydia rounds the corner to see Delia, pinned flat

TB against the house by one of her horrid steel sculp- tures. Two movers are struggling to free her. Lydia snaps a quick photograph.

They finally free Delia. She clutches at her head, just short of tearing her hair out.

Lydia walks off toward the house.

Barbara is half-hiding on the edge of the window.

Lydia looks up the stairs at the attic landing. She's a little scared. She decides to go up the dark stairs.

He continues on.

fills the hallway, because workmen are already going at the wallpaper. Lydia emerges from it. Looking up at stairway to attic, mounting courage.

Lydia creeps upward, taking the skeleton key from her pocket. FLOORBOARDS SQUEAK.

Adam works on his model. He hears the SQUEAK, looks up confidently.

Barbara smiles and knits while rocking in her chair.

Lydia quietly inserts the key in the lock of the attic door. She turns it. The key is stiff. She turns harder. It's stuck. Lydia tries the door -- it's no go. She turns the key again. This time it goes all the way around.

Barbara and Adam, surprised by the key, look at each other, carefully, very quietly, stand up and tiptoe toward door.

ON THE SCREEN OF AN OLD TV SET

in the corner of the attic -- Suddenly -- a ghostly image POPS ON.

ON TV - A BIZARRE, SMALLISH FELLOW

outfitted in a too-big cowboy hat, bad wig, and over- sized sunglasses appears on screen singing very quickly. (It's a heavily disguised BETELGEUSE.)

TB la Cal Worthington.

He POPS OFF. Adam and Barbara stare at each other.

Lydia listens. Did she hear something? She puts her hand on the knob and tries to turn it. It's stuck.

Then the key eerily pops out of the lock and falls on the floor.

Charles' head suddenly appears behind her. Scares her.

Adam is holding on tight to the knob of the door. With her knitting needle, Barbara has poked the key out.

The two stand absolutely still, listening, terrified of the living intruders.

Barbara and Adam tighten.

She hands her father the key. He looks at it and throws it in the corner.

He goes down the stairs.

He continues.

A BLAST OF STEAM from below drowns out her words. Charles stops and turns around. The BLAST STOPS.

She is resolved.

Charles continues. She begins to follow slowly.

Barbara and Adam have moved away from the door.

Adam takes a piece of chalk and draws a little door on the exposed brick of the chimney.

Adam draws a doorknob. Then he tries to turn it. The door, perhaps to his surprise, fails to open.

He looks at book, then writes on the door: KNOCK AND ENTER. He exchanges a glance with Barbara. She's even more skeptical than before. Turns away in disgust.

Behind is an eerie light source, SOARING MUSIC, maybe even a heavenly choir singing pear-shaped syllables.

Barbara and Adam look at one another again. They hold hands and step tentatively through.

Their figures are lost in the blinding light.

They start to shut door after them.

Charles, fiercely intent on relaxing, paces like a catfish out of water. Ralph Lauren in K-mart. He stretches. He sits uneasily in an easy chair, tries like hell to get comfortable. Finally, he puts a book under his bottom to get sitting straight. Looks around tapping his fingers. What to do? Looks at watch.

He takes down a book from Adam's library, it is an Audubon book of birds. He whips through it like it's the comics and then looks around for more.

He finds the "Illustrated Walden" by Thoreau. He speed reads it.

He is now really bored. Goes to the fireplace, tries to light it. Cannot do it. Goes to desk and writes:

He studies bird posters. Finds beautiful cardinal picture.

Takes field glasses and looks out window.

Lydia enters. He jumps.

Lydia is shocked.

Charles returns to field glasses, spies something. She looks at him in frustration.

She exits. Charles peers after her, brow furrowed. Looks out again at the village. Uses his field glasses to get a better look.

He thinks. Moves the field glasses to punctuate his discovery of the building. (His eyes never leave field glasses throughout the following.)

That really registers with him. Without looking, he dials a familiar number on the phone with one hand, lifts the receiver. He clacks his teeth together pur- posefully.

He hangs up and continues to spy on Bozman Building. Clacks his teeth.

TIGHT SHOT - BARBARA AND ADAM

Very still, they look cautiously to the right and left -- just with their eyes. They're astounded by what they see, though we don't yet see it.

CAMERA DRAWS BACK and we find that Adam and Barbara are

TB in:

The most unpleasant waiting room that you ever remember waiting in. Fifties furniture with broken legs, couches propped up on telephone books.

Standing ashtrays with dirty stand. Linoleum floors patched a hundred times. National Geographics with the covers torn off. The "Take a number" registers in the millions.

AS THE CAMERA COMPLETES A CIRCLE OF THE ROOM

We see a RECEPTIONIST. She's the quintessential 50's receptionist -- tight sweater, bullet-breasted bra, bleached hair, red lipstick. She's wearing a ribbon across her breast reading "MISS ARGENTINA" and there are knife slashes across both wrists.

TB actually, in that house, during

which you get only three class-one D-90 intercessions with Juno. You probably haven't even read through the manual completely yet.

The waiting room is now filled with people. Dead people, some in fairly awful states. A cornucopia of carnal shreddage.

Adam and Barbara look around for a moment, then very quietly, they reach out to grasp hands.

CAMERA PUSHES IN CLOSE.

Lydia kneels down with a screwdriver, a nail file, an ice pick, and a credit card. She inserts nail file into the door. She struggles, and after several

TB attempts -- finally uses the ice pick and POP! The door swings open ominously.

Lydia enters. The room is dim, and filled with dust motes. There are shadows in all the corners.

She bumps into a switch which engages the model sun and moon and that eerily illuminates the model town. She's frightened, then entranced.

She peers at it from different angles, her fear for- gotten. She notes small tools scattered around an unfinished area. She continues around the model, oblivious to everything else. Then...

She kicks something. Ducks under the table and comes up with something, holds it up to the light. It's the handbook. She looks through it. Finds the marked page... looks at the chalk door.

Barbara and Adam are still holding hands, as if they hadn't moved. Like waiting for an IRS audit.

The Receptionist overhears. She points at Barbara.

She holds up her wrists and smiling at her little joke, wriggles them indicating her slashes.

Barbara and Adam look at them. Corpses resume doing what they were doing. A GRINDING NOISE O.S. -- The Receptionist looks up.

TB Barbara and Adam also look O.S.

Barbara and Adam upset at the loss of their handbook...

Lydia is studying the handbook with intense interest.

Lydia gives one more look at the book, and then goes to the door quickly and silently.

Adam and Barbara walk through a door.

TB A vast room of desks arranged in a grid, straight out of "How To Succeed In Business"... Each desk is occupied, too, but most of the secretaries are merely skeletons, or mouldering corpses slumped over their typewriters.

Only one secretary, somewhere in the vast grid, is typing slowly, with long pauses between words.

The Messenger on his return trip, parallels Barbara and Adam as they walk along. Barbara can't look at him.

Barbara and Adam enter corridor.

Empty, like a hotel corridor, but all the doors are of different types -- a revolving door, a dutch door, church doors. They walk past a waist-high window, covered by a roll-up shade.

She bumps into the shade and it rolls up FLAPPING. She stares in through the window. Adam peers in it too.

TB the bodies in this horrible human soup.

Suddenly, floating up from below, immediately on the other side of the window, a white-crepe face emerges. It seems to be that of a woman, her eyes are red and blue tears rim them. Her pale skin is covered with a flaking crust of salt. She wears the saddest look ever. Her mouth opens plaintively but no sound comes.

A reflection joins them on their side of the window.

The man scuttles off. Adam and Barbara walk on sadly, until they come to a door that looks exactly like the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room of their house.

Puzzled -- Barbara pushes it.

Everything is dark, quiet -- but the furniture is obviously not theirs, and neither is the decoration. Adam and Barbara exchange glances, and push on through into the living room.

Quiet, dark. Everyone's asleep.

TB different down here. All our

furniture is gone.

TB the house with people who were --

He indicates a particularly bad piece of Delia's sculp- ture. Juno walks around it shaking her head.

The following conversation takes place as Barbara and Adam follow Juno as she looks around the house and ends up in their attic space.

Juno's watch BUZZES, she stops it.

TB Use your talents. Practice. We

only help those who help themselves. Just do a little at a time. And of course, practice, practice, practice. It's tricky but -- you weren't murderers by any chance, were you?

Points at her head indicating dumbness.

Adam and Barbara look at each other. Puzzled.

ADAM & BARBARA Well... We might...

Juno peers into the model cemetery with interest. A FLY BUZZES around her. Juno blows it away. Fly flees.

A grave look comes over Juno's face as the light changes to suggest someone telling a ghost story around a campfire.

Adam and Barbara look at each other. Juno continues.

Adam and Barbara attempt to interrupt --

She takes a final drag on the cigarette and smoke billows out the hole in her throat. Juno starts to FADE.

Juno fades. Gone. Barbara goes to the model, looks at the cemetery.

They exit.

The FLY BUZZES. It lands and crawls along into the model of the cemetery.

VOICE Pssstt! Over here!

Fly stops. Tilts its multi-eyed head.

VOICE I can't use this. You should have it. Flies get so little respect anymore.

A MANIACAL LAUGH grows from the grave. WIND BLOWS as the Fly disappears. Ivy whips away from the grave- stone. We see, for the first time, the chiseled name:

Charles is on the phone. He has drawings laid out in front of him. He is at his most urban persuasive, and oddly relaxed -- he is finally in his own element.

TB money? I think that is the only

real question here.

New York office, cool design, black couch, and MAXIE DEAN, a 55-year-old, super tan, white-haired wheeler dealer. Sign says: CHAIRMAN of BOTCO INDUSTRIES. Maxie looks rich and he looks cool as he talks to Charles. Behind him, Sarah, his rich-looking blonde wife, is looking at herself in a mirror.

Maxie isn't much interested.

This burns Charles. But he swallows it. He hears something in the corridor outside -- a kind of LOW MOANING.

Maxie hangs up. Shakes his head.

Charles hangs up frustrated. MOANING INCREASES. He goes to the door and flings it open.

A figure is right there in the doorway -- A ghost under a sheet. But a "designer" sheet. He wails away like a banshee. Eyeholes cut in sheets, Charles jumps, re- covers.

ON Barbara, she stands back away from the door observ- ing skeptically.

He slams the door, turns around. Then turns around again, and jerks the door open. The ghost is retreat- ing, beaten.

CHARLES

He SLAMS the door again.

Adam helps Barbara on with her sheet.

Television still going, Delia asleep with curlers. Adam and Barbara glide inside, go over and stand beside the bed.

She has her ever-present camera around her neck. Sud- denly hears MOANS from her parents' room. Thinking it is sexual, she cringes. Covers her ears.

The NOISE gets weirder. Lydia gets interested.

Adam and Barbara moan and groan. Delia doesn't stir.

BARBARA

TB I feel really stupid.

Barbara moans louder and more weirdly.

Delia stirs, sits up, but doesn't open her eyes.

Adam and Barbara are excited then... disappointed as Delia fumbles on the bedside table for the remote con- trol device, and without opening her eyes, turns off the television set. Then she turns over, and is lost to the world totally.

Barbara sighs. She and Adam walk toward the door. When they open it however, Lydia is standing there in her pajamas -- she snaps a FLASH Polaroid -- and Adam and Barbara jump backwards with yelps of fright.

Lydia starts back into her room. Then looks at the developing photograph. Something catches her eye.

Lydia yelps with fear.

She screams. Adam and Barbara scream. Lydia rushes back toward them, starts flashing pictures.

Adam and Barbara run around and are pushed into a corner. Polaroids fly everywhere.

Lydia runs out of film. She stares at them, panting with fear. A standoff.

Barbara moans.

LYDIA

Adam and Barbara pull shut bedroom door, go out into the hall -- as if to keep from waking Delia with their conversation.

All three stare at each other tentatively.

Lydia blushes. Barbara smiles warmly. She is begin- ning to like Lydia.

Lydia nods her head.

Barbara smiles.

Adam and Barbara look at each other.

Adam's rigged up the moon, and stars, too. Adam and Barbara and Lydia stand just beyond the fringes of the town, dimly lighted giants.

Lydia flushes.

CHARLES (O.S.)

TB Lydia!

Lydia starts to exit.

Barbara shakes her head, a little ashamed.

She sneaks a smile at Barbara and exits.

A big ugly machine is doing something unnecessary to the yard.

The FAST-TICKING CLOCK is a timer. Lydia is making Polaroid enlargements. She's quick and expert at this. She's examining a print with a magnifying glass.

Delia shrieks. Going through the dirty clothes, she's just come across the sheets with the eye holes in them.

Lydia, pounding up from the basement with the wet print, collides with Delia, rushing down from the sec- ond floor with the scissored sheets.

Lydia speeds by her.

Lydia rushes in. Charles is working furiously on a word processor, amidst an array of maps and plans.

LYDIA

TB This is not a joke! That sheet

was full of ghosts.

She hands him the photo. He looks. Lydia points out...

Charles laughs.

Charles begins to scroll through computer program.

Lydia exits, with determination. Charles looks up on the wall and runs his finger over a plat map of Winter River, just like Adam's in the attic.

Adam peers at the map, puzzled.

Barbara follows Lydia out. Adam thinks, intrigued. Exits.

Delia is frantically preparing for the evening's dinner party. Lydia is very much in her way, trying to show her the photographs. Delia isn't looking at them.

Lydia exits angrily.

CAMERA HINGES. Barbara is watching, horrified at Delia's occupation of her (Barbara's) kitchen. Adam appears.

Adam looks intently through the book.

Barbara's eye is caught by something in the model cemetery. She moves over and sees a small gravestone

TB lit up by neon.

Adam comes over. Looks.

She looks at Adam, "should I?" Adam chews his lip thoughtfully.

ZAP! They are transported into the model graveyard.

WIND BLOWS -- With shovels and lanterns, Adam and Barbara are unlikely gravediggers. The mechanized clouds move in the sky across the mechanical moon, throwing weird shadows everywhere. Ground fog creeps slowly along the graves. It is so eerie.

Adam cringes too.

Adam looks down at the grave. Knocks on the stone. Nothing.

Hands her a shovel anyway. She digs.

They're almost down six feet. By now they are both almost out of sight in the grave. Inside the grave -- Adam suddenly hits wood.

They lean down and brush dirt off a brass plate on the coffin.

"BETELGEUSE"

A slight TREMOR shakes them. They look at each other and try to scramble from the grave.

Adam staggers backward, unhurt but shocked. All three stop.

And Adam and Barbara see the corpse is only a huge

TB marionette on a string and pole. A LAUGH comes from behind the gravestone.

TB Air blows up Barbara's dress, exposing her legs. He leers.

Barbara is grossed out and increasingly uneasy. Beetle Juice senses it and gets back to business.

Beetle Juice looks offended.

ANGLE

He swirls his face and shoulders into a horrifying image. Pleased, he laughs at himself.

BARBARA

TB No, we don't. We can work

something out ourselves. We just have to try harder.

A small tree falls in the model. Adam, across the room, walks over and straightens it.

He looks at Barbara who is poring over the handbook. Making notes. Counting out procedures.

TB BARBARA

(proud of herself) Just a hunch... remember things come in threes -- three times in, three times out... I'm getting the hang of this stuff.

Dinner for seven, as promised. Everything looks very nice. Deetzes are in control and in their element. The element is neurotic-chic.

Some of the guests are affecting distaste for having had to make the long drive to Connecticut. There's a bitchy feud going on between GRACE, the "Art In Amer- ica" writer, and BERNARD, Delia's agent, that threatens to become a full-scale war.

Otho is drunkish and engaged in his third favorite occupation -- direct attacks on the personal weaknesses of his friends. He's singled out his victim, BERYL, the editor for Ballantine, a frail-looking woman who is

TB dressed "artistically."

Lydia watches Otho thoughtfully. Suddenly very cur-

TB ious.

Delia senses that Lydia might talk ghosts here.

All quiet.

Otho's glance sharpens at this. Everyone else listens.

Charles, seeing things aren't going well for Delia, proposes a toast.

All lift their wineglasses. All drink. All synchro- nously spit out their wine. All together now...

Charles lifts the wine bottle from the cooler. Disgust spans the room.

Delia stares a spike through Lydia. Delia and Charles rush into the kitchen. Otho looks at his glass and peers at Lydia.

Delia rushes to get the sushi. Charles finds some good wine.

He nods reluctantly. She rushes back to guests.

Lydia is looking around curiously. Delia and Charles rush back in with sushi and good wine. Delia pours for Bernard, the obvious connoisseur. He tastes the wine. All wait. Is it Kerosene du Pape? He smiles. All smile.

Otho is more interested in Lydia's story. He leans toward her...

But then:

Lydia's eyes widen. MUSIC UP. All the guests are spellbound.

Charles, too, has the beat -- The Ink Spots in his eyes. In a voice not his own.

Delia is shocked. She looks at Lydia.

She is cut short by her powerful inspiration.

TB EVERYONE

"Shoo doo wop. Shoo doo wop."

A look of sheer delight comes across Lydia's face, unlike anything we have previously seen. She dances and claps her hands in time with the music. She is in teen heaven.

NOTE: Delia and the guests are fully aware of their singing/actions, but helpless to stop themselves. While it is funny, it is nevertheless just a little frighten- ing.

Lydia excitedly looks around the room to see if she can see the ghosts. She can't.

Now the song pauses... Everyone tries to recover for a shocked second. Instead, the tempo changes.

As the tempo quickens, the guest/chorus is syncopated like alternating pistons as they are pushed and pulled into their chairs. They sing throughout.

WIDER -- All the guests are punched by the shrimp, back over their chairs to the ground. They are stunned. Suddenly everyone runs frightened into the next room.

Adam and Barbara with huge smiles on their faces, dance the bugaloo then hug and kiss on the landing in front of the attic. Door is open.

They enter the attic and run to the window. Look out over the front yard.

YARD OF HOUSE - THEIR POV - NIGHT

filled with the cars of the guests, as well as Delia and Charles' vehicles.

ADAM (O.S.)

TB Any minute now. They'll all run

screaming.

Adam smiles proudly.

Timid KNOCK at the door of the attic.

Barbara glances at Adam. They don't know what to do.

Adam, puzzled, goes to the door and opens it. Lydia is standing there, sheepish.

The guests are sitting expectantly. The photographs are being passed around. The wheels are turning in Charles' mind -- he sees a gold mine. Everyone speaks at once.

Charles is scheming.

Charles plots and plans.

TB not until I see some real proof.

Lydia appears at the base of the stairs. Everyone stops squabbling, looks at her expectantly.

Bernard shakes his head as if all this were an elaborate hoax. He harumphs!

Bernard is now convinced this whole business was a put- on.

Bernard gathers Grace and Beryl and walks out the door.

They exit. Delia is horrified and embarrassed.

Delia, Charles, Otho and Lydia -- creep, creep.

Lydia nods. Delia suddenly, brashly pounds on the door.

TB of guests down there, who think

I'm a fraud. (to Lydia) I am going to teach you something here Lydia. You've got to take the right tone in things like this, or people -- whether they're dead or alive -- people will walk all over you. (loud) Come on out, or I will make death so miserable that you will wish you had never lived!

Delia pounds on door, which opens with an eerie CREAK.

Lydia is pushed in first. She looks around. Delia, Charles and Otho come in next, carefully. One by one they straighten up and look around.

Lydia shrugs, looks around.

Charles is suddenly transfixed. He stares at the model.

They gather around. Lydia is a little sad as she looks at the empty room and the model.

LYDIA

TB Come on. Leave their stuff alone.

She shakes her head. Otho spots the handbook. Palms it.

Delia is suddenly out the door, urging them all outside.

Otho pockets the handbook secretly as everyone exits. Delia carefully closes the door.

CAMERA EASES OVER TO THE WINDOW

We see two pairs of hands, white-knuckled, gripping the window sill from the outside.

Barbara and Adam are hanging outside the window. CAMERA EASES BACK to see that instead of hanging from the house --

They are hanging from a ledge over The Inferno --

After nearly falling, Adam barely saves Barbara and

TB they finally make it up, and disappear into the window.

Delia, Charles and Otho all start down the stairs, one by one. All are holding the handrail.

Delia glares at him.

POV -- down the handrail, as they walk downstairs. Lydia lags behind, sullen.

LOWER END OF THE HANDRAIL

lifts, and turns. The handrail has become a long, fat, diamond-backed snake -- unlike any we have ever seen. It flashes terrifying steel teeth and a red-feathered comb. It turns and HISSES at them.

leers at Lydia and drops Charles like a rock over the bannister. Charles screams.

What happens next is almost too fast for the eye to see.

Lydia screams and runs down the stairs.

Slowly, Barbara returns to the attic.

Adam and Barbara are exhausted. Agitated.

Adam is working with the model town. Barbara is pac- ing.

Adam rushes over to the model -- looks down.

Betelgeuse has run a beat-up old pickup into a fire hydrant. He stands nearby, hopping mad; shakes his fist at Adam.

BETELGEUSE (V.O.)

ANGLE

Angry, Barbara reaches down into the model and plucks Betelgeuse up.

Barbara lifts him up toward her, squeezing him slightly.

CLOSEUP - BETELGEUSE IN BARBARA'S HAND

Betelgeuse 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 squeals and releases the evil spirit and he plum- mets.

Betelgeuse lands on the town common. Betelgeuse is defiant.

ANGLE

TB We hear the tinny strains of "Honky Tonk Angel" as if from down the street. He turns around to follow it.

He turns the corner to a whorehouse, with women -- women with demon horns -- hanging out of the window, beckoning. Betelgeuse rubs his hands together and swaggers inside.

Barbara aghast, watching this from above.

ANGLE

He doesn't finish -- a strong WIND blows through the attic, nearly knocking Barbara and Adam over. They close their eyes against the gale.

When they open their eyes again, they're no longer in the attic. They're in --

A cubicle in a much larger office. Miss Argentina swishes by.

She exits. There are other special workers. The place is really, really busy. Adam and Barbara sit down to wait. Juno storms through with a sheaf of papers. She sees them. She is steaming mad.

A BUNCH OF FOOTBALL PLAYERS

follow Juno like hungry dogs.

DUMB #1 Hey, Coach, where's the men's room?

DUMB #2 You don't need a men's room. You're not no man no more. But Coach, let me get this -- What's our curfew over here?

They start squabbling. Juno has to wrangle them into another room.

Charles sits at the table with a small bandage on his head. Delia takes off her Gucci belt and whips it on a chair absent-mindedly.

TB Charles.

It's dark. The bedroom curtains have been closed. DRAMATIC OPERA MUSIC builds throughout.

Lydia melodramatically dressed in a long black dress appears carrying a candle. She is softly crying.

She sits at her dressing table, the candlelight shows her writing paper. She begins a very dramatic letter.

She looks at it and crumpling the paper, starts again.

TB like a puppet between two

deceitful worlds. By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped off...

She scratches that out.

A tear falls on the paper as she folds it and puts it in an envelope. OPERA MUSIC BUILDS AND CONTINUES.

Lydia slowly makes a copy of the suicide note. The green of the Xerox light falls eerily on her sad face.

Lydia at bottom of attic stairs.

LYDIA'S POV - STAIRS AND DOOR AT TOP

They look ominous. She starts upward.

The door opens and Lydia peers in.

The room is empty. Lydia comes inside.

She hears SOMETHING. Looks all around the room. Nothing.

TB Lydia looks around, then peers into model.

A tiny Betelgeuse on the roof of a building, wearing a silk dressing gown, looking like he just dragged him- self out of bed. One of the horned whores is nude, sunbathing in the corner, and Betelgeuse drapes a blanket over her. Lydia's face looms enormous in the sky.

TB Vicious...

He holds up two fingers in a V.

Betelgeuse holds up one finger.

Betelgeuse puts two fingers on his arm.

LYDIA

TB Your fingers are so small I can't

see them. First word -- two syllables.

He points behind her.

ANGLE

Lydia looks behind her. A greet beetle the size of a Volkswagen is crouching. Its feathery antennae reach out toward her menacingly. Lydia yelps.

POP! The beetle disappears. Betelgeuse holds up two fingers.

ANGLE

Apprehensive, she jumps when a simple carton of orange juice materializes. Orange juice pours out into a ghostly glass.

The orange juice disappears. He shakes his head.

Betelgeuse does the signal for "Now Put Them Together."

LYDIA

TB I am not! Beetle... Juice?

Lydia, puzzled, gets the magnifying glass and peers at him.

ON HIS UGLY FACE BIG IN THE GLASS

Betelgeuse jumps in the air, his robe parts -- we don't see anything, but maybe Lydia does.

Lydia doesn't get it.

She thinks about that one. Shakes her head.

Betelgeuse smiles.

Lydia walks around thinking for a moment.

Juno staring at them, hard.

They both look puzzled.

TB it takes, just get them out of

there now. It's not pretty, but -- that's death!

Adam stands to go.

They look at Juno.

Barbara looks at Adam.

ANGLE

She reluctantly does with her face a minor version of Adam's horror.

ANGLE

Barbara and Adam slowly stand and walk out the door. Barbara/Monster looks back pleadingly. Football players flood into Juno's office. One PARTICULARLY DUMB PLAYER has a revelation. (He's pretty grisly, maybe sat too close to the engine.)

PARTICULARLY DUMB PLAYER

TB Coach! Coach, I don't think we

survived the crash!

Barbara and Adam look at each other and continue out the door.

She rushes up the stairs, toward the attic. He follows her.

She gets to the door. Grabs the handle.

She throws open the door.

Lydia is standing over the model, about to say Betelgeuse's name.

Barbara/Monster, horrified, screams!

TB Adam/Monster runs to grab her. Lydia is terrified. Screams.

Betelgeuse slips off the roof into a patch of thorny bushes.

Lydia screams, Adam/Monster tries to calm her. Lydia struggles and, thinking she is being attacked, runs out the door. Smack into Barbara/Monster.

Barbara catches her, frightens Lydia even more. Barbara holds onto her as she struggles. Barbara/ Monster slowly changes back into regular Barbara. Lydia sees who it is and she hugs her. Like mother and daughter.

ON ADAM - slowly returning to himself. He smiles slightly at the scene.

Barbara quickly puts her hand over her mouth.

TB dramatically

but for real) Life is just... unliveable...

Barbara hugs her. She fumbles for words. This is an unusual situation, a dead person talking a live person out of killing herself. She rocks Lydia a little. Barbara looks at Adam.

Lydia looks at Barbara lovingly.

Lydia and Barbara laugh at him.

ANGLE

Without noticing Lydia, Otho and Charles push in

TB through the door and grab the model. They take it out the door.

Adam is beside himself. Doesn't know what to do.

Barbara stops him from taking action.

Adam looks suspiciously at her.

She runs out the door.

Lydia runs through the hallway and into the dining room.

Lydia walks into a presentation in progress. Sitting around the table are Otho, Maxie, and Delia. Sarah Dean is there, too. She looks around Lydia hoping for ghosts. Sarah is heavily made up, smells bad.

Lydia's photos of the sheeted ghosts are blown up and standing on a nearby easel. Charles, over the model with a pointer, is lost in mid-sentence.

TB to the right to start an insect zoo

here in the old hardware store. (seeing Lydia) Lydia, did you finally decide to join us?

They all give her an oily smile.

Sarah gets Maxie's attention and unable to contain her excitement, silently urges him to get on with the ghosts.

Everyone looks at Lydia.

Sarah is disappointed. She goes to Maxie. Delia takes over.

TB here. But we aren't relying on

her. No, we rely on professionals. We have... Otho.

The whole room turns to Otho. Who is scribbling some- thing and mumbling.

Otho looks up; he missed the question.

He dramatically produces the handbook.

Lydia begins to think about this scene and she shifts to another point of view.

The moon stares down icily through gray clouds. Wind up.

Barbara is looking out the window.

Adam isn't convinced. Barbara motions him to sit next to her.

Delia carefully brings out a big plastic bag. Lays something out on the dining room table.

Lydia stands to see: Delia carefully lays out Barbara's white wedding dress. Then next to it, Adam's wedding tux.

Otho then holds up the handbook.

Otho nods.

Lydia is nervous now. Otho lights a candle and Delia turns out the lights.

Nothing happens. Lydia nervously turns away.

ANGLE

Then a SIZZLE, a TINY CRACKLE, along one side of the square.

Barbara with her arm on his shoulder, talks to Adam.

Barbara slowly smiles. He does too.

He turns to Barbara. CAMERA HINGES WITH him to see --

Varicolored lightning bolts shoot from every corner of the square. A gasp from everyone but Lydia.

ON LYDIA -- she is looking away. She turns to see:

Lydia rises slowly to her feet, unable to resist.

More lightning bolts.

Lydia walks slowly toward Barbara.

TB Lydia screams for Adam.

In a lightning flare we see: Adam searching for Barbara. He rushes out into the hallway.

His last plaintive call becomes mute as he too begins slowly to disappear.

On each of the watchers one by one, scared but delighted too. No one is watching Lydia.

ON LYDIA -- tears well up in her eyes.

ON HANDS -- as he grasps her hand, it seems to be made of white crepe; it wrinkles and nearly collapses.

Adam... puzzled, calls her name silently.

Obviously not true.

ON BARBARA -- she looks down slowly at Lydia and with effort makes a loving smile. She reaches out toward Lydia.

Completely helpless now, Lydia weeps openly and then something comes over her. She rushes across the room. Stares down at the model.

A CRACK OF LIGHTNING.

Someone, or something, like the figure of death in the Goya drawing, is perched atop the gravestone of Barbara and Adam Maitland. The graves beneath him are open. The figure turns... it is Betelgeuse. He is filing his talons casually.

He speaks with a ghastly rasp.

He grins.

LYDIA

Otho doesn't answer.

CHARLES

Lydia peers at the model. Betelgeuse is transforming. There's a LOW RUMBLE. The model town starts to shake.

Lydia backs away. Betelgeuse's head, now human-size, rises from the center of the model town.

ANGLE

Sarah rushes over to the model, thinking this is more of the show. Maxie follows.

ANGLE

Betelgeuse swings his hammer/hands and sends Max and Sarah zooming through the roof. GONG. GONG.

ANGLE

ANGLE

He looks up at the suspended Maitlands.

TB BETELGEUSE

Let's have a hand for the Maitlands, Barbara and Adam. They deserve a rest.

ANGLE

He waves and the door opens. A little Italian gentle- man appears.

ANGLE

Otho is horrified. Suddenly he looks down and sees his clothing has transformed into a polyester nightmare. He runs out the door screaming. Betelgeuese laughs with delight then focuses on Lydia.

TB BETELGEUSE

Let's leave this crazy world behind us. I'll take you out in style!

Sound of eerie WEDDING MARCH. The fireplace changes into an expressionist altar.

ANGLE

His leering horned whores walk like bridesmaids, in step, through the door. They rush toward Lydia.

ANGLE

Frightened, Lydia is assaulted and pulled forward by these ugly handmaidens; she suddenly looks down and sees she is now clothed in a blood-red wedding dress. Lydia screams!!

Adam's eyes widen.

Betelgeuse waves a hand and Lydia's mouth freezes. Delia and Charles plead with the recovering Maitlands.

Betelgeuse looks at Lydia.

Betelgeuse shifts his glare to Charles and Delia.

TB From Behind, Delia's horrid sculptures come to life and attack Charles and Delia. The sculptures twist around them, forcing them to watch the hideous spectacle.

Adam and Barbara are rapidly trying to recover as the ceremony begins.

His mouth drops and is frozen.

Lydia screams and struggles.

Lydia struggles. Her screams are muffled and distant. Betelgeuse grabs her and shakes her.

Adam, now fully regenerated, moves toward them. He shouts the incantation.

Betelgeuse turns to him and with a sweep of his hand, Adam's teeth (as if they were false), fly out of his mouth and CLATTER to the floor. Adam, toothless, musters up his ghost powers and --

ON TEETH - TIGHT -- they rare back and continue shouting...

ANGLE

Mayhem breaks out. A furious Betelgeuse stomps at them with his feet. The teeth scuttle under the model.

ANGLE

Barbara screams and jumps at Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse turns on her, eyes flashing.

TB do.

Adam sees Barbara rush out. He looks back at Betelgeuse, floors the gas pedal and goes for one last shot.

A RUMBLE comes from outside. Everyone notices but the Preacher. He stutters to finish the wedding.

LOUDER NOISE from outside. Now nearly DEAFENING.

ANGLE

The truck is racing up to Betelgeuse's foot. Adam bails out just in time as the truck hits Betelgeuse's foot and EXPLODES, giving him a distracting hot foot, then --

ANGLE

Beetle Juice struggles, trying to run from the worm. But Barbara and the worm outmaneuver him, corner him, and when the worm reaches him, he opens his hungry mouth and gulps Betelgeuse in one mouthful.

Barbara leaps off, as the Sand Worm continues down through the floorboards of the house

Betelgeuse is gone. Adam is back to full size. Charles and Delia are no longer held by the sculptures. Lydia runs back to her family and Adam and Barbara. The dust settles.

FADE IN:

BIRDS SING. Ernie polishes the lion. Old Bill sleeps. People stroll.

A lovely white boarding school with long, green lawn. A BELL RINGS. Girls come out the front door. Say goodbyes. Lydia walks out too, carrying books.

Lydia walks along Main Street of Winter River.

Jane is getting out of her car -- Little Jane follows.

TB Jane hears PHONE RING from inside, rushes in to answer it.

Ernie polishes the lion. Lydia passes.

He looks around, surprised.

Jane screams into the phone.

CAMERA EXPLORES a row of photographs of houses for sale.

ON PHOTOGRAPH -- of the old Maitland house. It is delapidated and haunted-looking. A legend reads: Fixer-Upper's Special."

BACK TO JANE -- she is frustrated.

Little Jane is now at the Xerox machine. The NOISE irritates Big Jane and she throws a wad of paper at Little Jane. Little Jane gets mad and throws her papers into the air and exits.

We recognize the furniture. It's the Deetzes'. Delia is on the phone to Jane. Charles comes in with the Wall Street Journal. He fidgets, taps his fingers, as he reads and pours coffee -- all at once.

Charles picks up the extension.

CHARLES

TB Listen to me, Jane. We don't want

anyone looking at the house. We don't want it painted, the yard mowed, the trees trimmed, nor do we want it termite inspected. It's not for sale.

Jane listens. Silent. Thinking.

She hangs up. Looks at Charles.

Charles smiles.

SOUND OF SWEEPING -- CAMERA eases up -- Barbara is sweeping. Adam working on his model.

Barbara smiles.

The KITCHEN DOOR SLAMS. Barbara looks up at Adam. They smile.

Adam frowns a little.

Lydia looks down coyly.

They grin with pride.

ON LYDIA -- she puts down her books. Loosens her collar, ruffles her hair and waits.

Lydia looks down. Lydia begins to levitate.

TB She lifts her head and leaves the white bread world behind! In a voice as deep and soulful as Percy Sledge:

Behind her ghostly images of the football players appear as back-up.

MUSIC CONTINUES OVER:

ANGLE

A great pile of sand with the whorehouse in the middle. An irritated Betelgeuse crawls out on the roof. Hating the singing he shakes his fist at the sky -- loses his footing and tumbles into the sand. Terrified, he scrambles to get out.

ANGLE

CAMERA TILTS UP to see house. It is the perfect, New England house. CAMERA PULLS BACK from the model -- out the window of the real house.

Outside the real house -- we see it is dilapidated, and undeniably, the perfect haunted house.