Phaneron

13th Sep 2024

Beetlejuice (1988)

Stupidity: Juno adamantly warns Adam and Barbara against getting help from Beetlejuice, but then proceeds to freely tell them exactly how to conjure him. She even snubs them when Adam asks how to get back in touch with her should they need her assistance again.

Phaneron

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I think she was giving them more of a warning against conjuring him accidentally by saying his name three times. Didn't she tell Adam that she wasn't available when he asked? That might explain the snub.

If she was warning them about accidentally saying his name three times, then it also would have been wise for her to tell them in that same moment that they could make him go away by saying his name three times again, but she didn't. She also said she wasn't available to help them in that moment, not at a later date like Adam was asking. By refusing to answer Adam's question, she made it more likely that they would turn to Beetlejuice for help.

Phaneron

13th Sep 2024

Beetlejuice (1988)

Revealing mistake: When the charred man is offering Adam a cigarette, you can see the hole in the headrest of the chair where the actor is sticking his head through. (00:31:49)

Phaneron

25th Jun 2023

Beetlejuice (1988)

2nd Nov 2020

Beetlejuice (1988)

Chosen answer: Barbara did conjure him earlier in the movie when she saw lights in the model going off and then said his name three times. According to Juno, they let Beetlejuice out but didn't put him back, which gave him the opportunity to attack the Deetzs.

30th Oct 2018

Beetlejuice (1988)

Question: Is there any reason besides plot convenience that the Deetzes didn't enter the attic during the three months that the Maitlands were away from the house to meet with Juno? I realise they don't have the key, but seeing as how they were renovating the entire house anyway, it seems like they would have had no problem just knocking the door down.

Phaneron

Answer: No reason was given, but they probably felt no immediate need to enter the attic. I've never been in my own house's attic. As you pointed out, it's really a matter of plot convenience.

raywest

Maybe Lydia reserved it like Charles reserved one room for himself too.

lionhead

Good point.

Phaneron

Answer: After the dinner scene when Otho asked where they hid and Lydia said "the attic" Charles replied that the attic was locked. So it seems like she never told them she had the skeleton key.

lartaker1975

I addressed this in the question. A key is not required to get into the attic because they could just break the door down.

Phaneron

Except they didn't break the door down. Delia kept banging on the door until it opened. If they had broken the door down, there would have been some damage.

I didn't say they broke the door down. I was stating that they could knock the door down if they needed to get into the attic and didn't have the key. Please reread the original question.

Phaneron

Answer: This is purely for convenience. It's always bothered me. Like since the early 90s when I first had a VHS copy to rewind. That whole house has been gutted and rebuilt but no-one got in to the attic for 3 months? That's BS. For one thing not only would someone like Charles Deets want to see every square inch of his property, but a major company/contractor doing a remodel of that size would have at some time needed access to and been on every square foot of that house.

Quite often, people don't think about the attic along with the rest of the house. Many of them won't be going into the attic every day, not every month, maybe not more than once a year.

6th Apr 2016

Beetlejuice (1988)

Question: When Adam first steps out of the house and ends up on Saturn, he's only there for a few seconds in real time, but Barbara tells him he was gone for two hours. Yet towards the end of the movie when Beetlejuice banishes Barbara to Saturn, she's there for a considerably longer time (at least long enough to wrangle a sandworm and co-opt it) but ends up only being gone for a few minutes and manages to return to the house in time to stop Beetlejuice from marrying. Why is this? Since she was on Saturn longer than Adam's first time there, shouldn't she have been gone for longer than two Earth hours?

Phaneron

Chosen answer: Time flows differently on Saturn and in the afterlife than it does in the house. Not faster or slower, just differently. Ten minutes on Saturn could be hours, or months, or just seconds in the house. There is no connection or relationship between the passage of time in one place and the passage of time in another.

Phixius

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.