Beetlejuice (1988)

directed by Tim Burton

Kayla Kinney Stockdale

The earliest memory I have of Beetlejuice is watching it via recorded VHS tape on my family’s old tube TV. Before DVR and streaming, my dad loved taping his favorite movies and TV shows on blank VHS tapes. He carefully labeled the tape on the side of the VHS and stored them with all of his other archived materials like his favorite episodes of The Andy Griffith Show or a movie he never wanted to forget. I can’t recall the exact age I first saw Beetlejuice. My best guess is between ages five and seven. In other words, too young to comprehend Miss Argentina’s forearm scars and most of Beetlejuice’s quips. But I distinctly remember how it made me feel.

The scene that sticks out to me is where Beetlejuice morphs himself into a snake (using a banister as a transition point) to scare Lydia Deet’s parents and their friends. Lydia’s previous attempt with her ghost pals Barbara and Adam—come-to-life shrimp cocktail hands and a possessed dance number to a Harry Belafonte song—was positively received by the dinner guests. Beetlejuice condescendingly remarks to Barbara and Adam, “Oh, you guys are a couple of real spooksters, aren’t ya?” and then proceeds to scare the shit out of everyone, including Lydia.

As a child who had previously obsessed over the tame antics and pranks of Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, this scene was surreal. Between the grotesque creative design of Beetlejuice’s snake face to the uncanny practical effects, I wasn’t scared, but enamored. What exactly was I watching, and why? And later on in life, I wondered, How can I find more things like this?

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I’ve always been drawn to “strange and unusual” art that makes me ask more questions than I receive answers to. It’s that type of art that crawls down your spine and makes you feel bad but in a good way. It confuses you but never requires a definitive explanation. It can be pure horror or capture the terror of the real world. I’ve always been able to identify this distinct feeling by how much I can hyper-fixate on the story. Art that resonates with me will make me drop everything I’m doing and take it in.

I was, and still am, an avid reader, always looking for the next mind fuck. As a ‘90s kid, my natural progression of discovering weird and spooky stuff started with the Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. I think what drew me into those books was mostly the art. Tim Jacobus, the cover artist for Goosebumps from 1992 to 2000, had a knack for warping the mundane. I was sincerely afraid to look at the cover of the book The Horror at Camp Jellyjam, number 33 in the original Goosebumps series. It pictures a camp counselor with yellowed skin, bulging eyes, and a toothy smile so wide that it looks unnatural. Stephen Gammell, the artist who made the drawings in the original publication of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, created images so disturbing that the art was eventually pulled and replaced with less horrifying drawings in more recent reprintings of the books. I find that to be very sad. Why shouldn’t kids be able to experience art that pushes boundaries? And, I mean, look at me, I’m a functioning adult and watched the web series “Salad Fingers” when I was 12 years old.

I eventually graduated to the works of David Lynch, the king of “something feels off.” The scenes and sounds of Eraserhead were my first foray into Lynch’s world. Previously, I’d known nothing about him, and maybe it’s the 20-year-old in me talking, but I was blown away. Naturally, I became a huge fan of Twin Peaks and many of his films. And what I love so much about his work is that he offers it as-is and doesn’t provide an explanation when asked. He lets his audience take what they want. The uncanny and mysterious, in my opinion, should be ambiguous.

More recently, I found the comedy group Wham City Comedy. They’ve produced a number of Adult Swim infomercials, which are comedic shorts that debut at 4 am. They’re designed to be disorienting and provoke an uncomfortable feeling. “Comedy” doesn’t come close to what the Wham City group makes unless you consider laughing uncomfortably a comedic experience. With their video “Unedited Footage of a Bear,” they critique the American healthcare system, specifically the pharmaceutical industry. In “This House Has People In It,” very obviously inspired by Lynch, a family goes through a very intense and unexplainable situation. These videos have inspired an entire YouTube movement in which creators explore possible meanings and underlying themes. Wham City Comedy was able to peel back the layers of suburbia, repression, and mental illness, and unleash the uncanny.

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At the heart of my love of Beetlejuice was my affection for Lydia. Look, relating to the goth girl in Beetlejuice is by no means original, and I can see how basing one’s personality around a suicidal teen is maybe not the best way to shape your life, but as I grew up with Beetlejuice, I related to her resistance to normalcy. To me, normalcy means submitting to the status quo. Never challenging institutions, systems, and ideas. But isn’t it good to dig a little deeper, to explore what others haven’t? Social norms aren’t rules, they’re suggestions.

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Odd as it may seem, I find comfort in the uncanny. Directors like Lynch and creators like Wham City Comedy make me feel at ease. Perhaps I appreciate the honesty, an unfiltered view of the everyday. 

Beetlejuice, although highly stylized, at least challenges the taboo of confronting grief and death. I find that to be radical, and even if I wasn’t able to understand this as a child, maybe I unconsciously took this with me throughout my life. Finding my sense of calm requires a feeling of unease. I am constantly on the lookout for the severed ear in a patch of grass, the middle-aged father abruptly losing his mind, and the Saturn sandworm in the front lawn.

Kayla Kinney Stockdale is a writer living in the Chicagoland area.