Trivia: A sequel to this film spent decades in development hell before finally going into production in 2023, with Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara all returning.
Phaneron
25th Jun 2023
Beetlejuice (1988)
2nd Nov 2020
Beetlejuice (1988)
Question: How did Beetlejuice leave the model and attack the Deetzes as a snake if no-one conjured him?
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.
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.
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.
I addressed this in the question. A key is not required to get into the attic because they could just break the door down.
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.
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?
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.
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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.