Coping Through Horror: What Bettlejuice Taught Me

Beetlejuice Movie

Recently, we've had some losses among my family and friends and it made me think about reading and writing Horror as a coping mechanism.

Death is scary and I think Horror has always sort of been there to help make things a little less scary. Which sounds ironic, right? But I see it like this.

Horror allows us to experience our anxieties and fears in a controlled environment where we know we are safe. So, all of those fears about death and dying, we deal with them while we read books or watch our favorite movies and shows. Maybe that's why Horror has such a neurodiverse audience.

Even as a little girl there was always something comforting about watching my favorite horror movies or listening to them play in the background. I remember watching Beetlejuice over and over again just because I loved the sound. The intro music and the ghostly moans of the Maitland couple beneath their "shrouds of death" gave me comfort.

The entire movie was based on death and the afterlife. The scariest part, for me, was the beauty queen. The idea of having to work for eternity is the worst kind of punishment. You’re telling me that even after I die I might still have to work? Still show up to my ghost job with shitty ghost benefits dealing with annoying ghost clients. The idea of indefinite servitude sends shivers down my spine. Even Beetlejuice wasn’t exempt from employment. He worked as a freelance bio exorcist.

Jobs aside, there was some comfort in knowing that the Maitland couple, though dead, were still around. Lydia, the “strange and unusual” daughter finds comfort in the couple’s company. Dealing with her own inner anguish and suicidal tendencies, she finds solace with the Maitland couple. They become a sort of surrogate family for Lydia as her own stepmother is completely self-absorbed, and her father inattentive.

Maybe this is why my pre-teen heart loved this movie so much. Kids who feel different and alone need characters that they can identify with. And boy did I ever identify with Lydia Deetz. Her ability to see what others couldn’t and, eventually, find meaning in it was, in my mind, a great achievement.

She took something scary and made it beautiful. She walked the tight rope of death and came out on the other side alive and with the one thing she’d always longed for, a family that saw her. That’s what we all want in the end isn’t it? To be seen.

The Maitland couple dying only to have to escape “death for the dead” is prevalent in Beetlejuice. After all they’ve been through, not being able to have children, the car accident, and dying, they still have to worry about being exorcised and experiencing their remaining existence through eternal torment or being eaten by sandworms from another planet. How’s that for irony?

They spend their afterlife essentially running from death and keeping Lydia from unaliving herself. I guess parenthood was harder than they thought it was going to be. When you watch the Maitland’s and the Deetz’s struggles, yours don’t seem as bad. At least your alive and not dead having to run from more death . . . and sandworms. Fuck those guys.

My problems were minor compared to theirs and there was damned sure nothing that was going to make me unlive myself if there was even the slightest possibility I might have to work for eternity. Maybe life isn't

so bad after all?

Beetlejuice taught me that death wasn’t the answer and that family wasn’t always family and that my problems weren’t always as big as they seemed. Also, don't eat the shrimp. I learned all that from one movie. How about that? Who says Horror rots your brain?

What are some of your favorite Horror books and movies and what have they taught you?

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