The release ofBeetlejuice 236 years after the franchise’s original movie answered a lot of the questions we were left with at the end ofBeetlejuice. Many key details about the backstory of the film’s eponymous bio-exorcist, Betelgeuse, are explained in the sequel, for instance, including the way he died. However, there are certain details from the first movie that the sequel doesn’t elaborate on, including one confusing detail from the final shot of Winona Ryder’s character Lydia Deetz inBeetlejuice.
The originalBeetlejuicemovie endswith Lydia dancing and miming along to Harry Belafonte’s calypso classic “Jump in the Line”, backed by a line of ghost football players who suddenly appear before her on the staircase of the Maitland house.Beetlejuice’s football playersare first introduced in an earlier scene, featuring the Maitlands’ dead caseworker Juno. Their apparent confusion at what they’re doing in Juno’s office is among the movie’s standout comedy moments. However, their sudden reappearance at the end ofBeetlejuicedoesn’t work nearly well, and how little sense it makes still bothers me every time I rewatch it.
How Do The Football Player Ghosts Suddenly Appear From The Afterlife In Beetlejuice’s Final OG Dance Scene?
Their Sudden Appearance Breaks The Rules Of The Recently Deceased
Although Tim Burton ultimately meant forBeetlejuiceto be funny, which is why the movie’s script toys with its own internal logic for comic effect, it wouldn’t be as wonderfully captivating if it didn’t at least set some ground rules for its ghoulish premise. Most of these rules are actually explained in the “Handbook of the Recently Deceased”, a book which both guides the characters Adam and Barbara Maitland through ghosthood, and provides us with the exposition we need to understand the world of the movie. Yet the sudden appearance of the footballer players at the end ofBeetlejuicebreaks one of the book’s main rules.
When the ghost football players serve as Lydia’s backing dancers inBeetlejuice’s closing scene, they appear out of nowhere, without entering the world of the living through a door or being summoned.
Every ghost in the movie, with the notable exceptions of caseworker Juno and Betelgeuse himself,must pass through a door to go between the afterlife and the world of the living. This rule is explicitly laid out in a scene where the newly-dead Maitlands must draw a door on a wall to enter the afterlife. Even Betelgeuse himself can only enter the world of the living when he’s summoned, by someone saying his name three times in quick succession.
On the other hand, when the ghost football players serve as Lydia’s backing dancers in the movie’s closing scene, they appear out of nowhere, without entering the world of the living through a door or being summoned. In this way, their appearance breaks theground rules for the afterlife laid out earlier inBeetlejuice, undermining the movie’s plot. This apparent contradiction is never clarified orexplained inBeetlejuice Beetlejuiceeither.
They’re See-Through, Whereas Other Ghosts In Beetlejuice Have Solid, Opaque Bodies
What’s more,the football players at the end ofBeetlejuicedon’t even look like the other ghostsin the movie. In fact, they actually appear different from how they looked in the earlier scene in Juno’s afterlife office. In every scene prior to this last shot, theghosts inBeetlejuicehave a solid appearance akin to living human beings. But when they suddenly arrive to dance along with Lydia to “Jump in the Line”, the football players are semi-transparent, more like the appearance of ghosts in other movies than the ones we see elsewhere inBeetlejuice.
Even when Barbara and Adam Maitland fall victim to an exorcism at the hands of the Deetz’ interior designer, Otho, their appearance doesn’t become more transparent. Instead, their skin shrivels and their bones begin to show, but they still appear just as solid as living beings. The translucent ghost football players certainly add a bit of extra off-the-wall humor to the final moments ofBeetlejuice. But this split-second shot isn’t worth cutting across the internal logic of the entire movie’s carefully crafted horror story for the sake of a moment’s comedy.
Cast
WHERE TO WATCH
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice stars Michael Keaton as the titular “bio-exorcist”, an obnoxious spirit who specializes in driving living occupants out of homes. When Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) die suddenly, they pass into the spirit realm, and must stay in their home. However, in the living world, the Deetz family purchases the house and moves in, prompting the Maitlands to enlist the help of Beetlejuice to drive them away.
