Beetlejuice Page #6

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

f***ing 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?

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