This article contains mentions of suicide and death.
Beetlejuice‘s hellish waiting room could only come from the mind of Tim Burton, and the various ghosts met there require a guide explaining their appearances and manners of death – especially ahead of its return in Beetlejuice 2. The 1988 movie is filled with memorable sequences, but one moment that really sticks out is the Neitherworld waiting room scene. This sequence finds Adam and Barbara meeting their afterlife caseworker, and they have to wait with various other spirits whose appearances indicate some gruesome deaths. The location and some of these ghosts then comically return in Beetlejuice‘s ending, after Beetlejuice is cast back into the afterlife’s realm.
After 36 years of audiences waiting, the original 1988 movie received a followup in the form of 2024’s Beetlejuice 2. The Tim Burton-directed sequel is confirmed brought back several original Beetlejuice characters and cast members, including Michael Keaton as the titular poltergeist, Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, and Catherine O’Hara as Delia Deetz. While a few surprise character returns are still expected, Beetlejuice 2 also featured the return of the Neitherworld waiting room and it’s iconic inhabitants, with several returning from the 1988 original.
|
Ghost |
Cause Of Death |
|---|---|
|
Juno |
Suicide |
|
Miss Argentina |
Suicide |
|
Harry the Hunter |
Hunting accident |
|
Witch Doctor |
Unknown |
|
Magician’s Assistant |
Sawed in half |
|
Char Man |
Fire |
|
Man In Hospital Robes |
Open-heart surgery |
|
Purple-Skinned Man |
Choking to death |
|
Diver/Swimmer |
Shark attack |
|
Man With Bone In Neck |
Choking to death |
|
Woman In Sleeping Bag |
Rattlesnake bite |
|
College Football Team |
Bus crash |
|
Messenger |
Ran over by vehicle |
|
Green-Skinned Man |
Unknown |
|
Ghost Standing Against The Wall |
Unknown |
15 Juno (Sylvia Sydney)
Cause Of Death: Suicide
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The only ghost from Beetlejuice‘s Neitherworld waiting room who plays a supporting role in the movie is Juno, as she serves as Adam and Barbara Maitland’s caseworker. The film reveals that people who die by suicide become civil servants in the afterlife, as the Neitherworld operates under a bureaucratic system. Juno also reveals a key detail that initially suggested Beetlejuice maybe also took his own life, since he used to be her assistant before going rogue. However, in Beetlejuice 2 his method of death was retconned, as it’s now confirmed he was killed by his wife.
Sylvia Sydney’s Juno is one of the most normal looking spirits in the Neitherworld, with her death doing little to significantly alter her appearance in the afterlife. While her manner of death is never explicitly stated, Juno appears to have tragically died by suicide via having her throat cut, as the smoke from her cigarettes often blows from the slit in her neck.
14 Miss Argentina (Patrice Martinez)
Cause Of Death: Suicide
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Another significant employee in the afterlife’s bureaucracy is Miss Argentina (played by Patrice Martinez), who won her title in 1939. It should be noted that she’s not based on a real person, as the real Miss Argentina competition seemingly didn’t have any pageants from 1938 until 1953. She seems to have a cheery disposition despite her fate in the afterlife, and seems to surprisingly enjoy her work (unlike Juno).
Miss Argentina serves as the receptionist in the Neitherworld waiting room, and becomes frustrated with Adam and Barbara when having to explain to the couple the rules in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Like Juno, Miss Argentina’s cause of death was suicide, which is gruesomely indicated by her cut wrists in the movie. It’s not revealed why the Receptionist in Beetlejuice killed herself, though given her costume it’s likely because she lost the Miss World pageant.
13 Harry The Hunter
Cause Of Death: Hunting Accident
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Among the most memorable ghosts in Beetlejuice‘s Neitherworld waiting room is Harry the Hunter, who seemingly died in a hunting accident. Still holding his hunting gear, including his hat and gun, in the afterlife, Harry the Hunter is first introduced when Barbara is frightened by his shrunken head. He then returns in Beetlejuice‘s final moments when sitting next to the titular character, with the cause of his shrunken head being revealed when Beetlejuice himself has his head shrunken by the Witch Doctor next to them.
Based on Michael Keaton’s teases for Beetlejuice 2‘s story, it’s possible that Harry the Hunter could make an appearance in the sequel. Keaton revealed that Beetlejuice 2 has a “shrunken head room,” which introduced various other ghosts (such as Bob) who were hexed to have a shrunken head in the waiting room.
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12 The Witch Doctor
Cause Of Death: Unknown
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At the end of Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice finds himself sitting between the Voodoo Shaman (credited as the Witch Doctor) and Harry the Hunter in the waiting room. Michael Keaton’s character, of course, makes a terrible error when he distracts the Witch Doctor and steals his ticket number, leading the latter character to use magic to shrink his head.
The Witch Doctor doesn’t have any spoken lines, but is still part of a hilarious final gag that ensured the Beetlejuice ending held up to the rest of the movie (and left room for a sequel). It’s unclear how the Shaman died in Beetlejuice without any visual scars, which means it could have potentially been due to natural causes. However, given by his proximity to Harry the Hunter (and the fact he did the same to Beetlejuice), it does seem to be implied that the Witch Doctor is responsible to for Harry’s shrunken head.
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11 Magician’s Assistant
Cause Of Death: Cut In Half During Magic Show Accident
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Memorably featured in Beetlejuice‘s final sequence, the Magician’s Assistant has one of the more gory deaths of those seen the waiting room. However, she was also one of the most humorous, as the way she died as obvious in a single glance. Not only that, but it’s one of the few deaths which would more than likely make the news if it happened. The blue-shaded ghost’s cause of death was being sawed in half during an accident at a magic show, indicating one of the most well-known magic tricks of sawing a woman in half in a box went horribly wrong.
While in the Neitherworld waiting room, the Magician’s Assistant sits with her torso-up on one couch cushion while her detached legs are positioned on the next cushion over, still wearing her red outfit from the doomed magic show. At one point, she hits Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice character with a book because he begins touching her legs.
10 Char Man (Douglas Turner)
Cause Of Death: Fire
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Credited as the Char Man (Douglas Turner), one of the few ghosts in Beetlejuice‘s waiting room who receives lines is a man who was burned alive. With the deceased man still smoking in the afterlife, it’s implied that he may have died by starting a fire with his cigarettes, which seems to be more likely after he ironically offers Adam Maitland a smoke.
Of all the Beetlejuice waiting room ghosts, Char Man is the only one who’s mildly unsettling to look at, even if he seems completely friendly. His body apepared burned to a crisp, with a significant percentage of his body mass missing. Char Man is certainly an example of how, in the world of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, the way a person appears at the time of their death sticks with them throughout the afterlife.
Char Man is certainly an example of how, in the world of Tim Burton’s
Beetlejuice
, the way a person appears at the time of their death sticks with them throughout the afterlife.
9 Man In Hospital Robes
Cause Of Death: Died During Open-Heart Surgery
Though he doesn’t receive any lines, one of the ghosts featured in Beetlejuice‘s waiting room is a man who seemingly died in open-heart surgery. The man is condemned to wearing his hospital robes with his heart exposed through the tear in the gown throughout the remainder of his time in the afterlife, which doesn’t seem to be too comfortable.
This ghost is also still donning his shower cap from his surgery as he reads his copy of the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, suggesting he may be as recently dead as Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin’s Beetlejuice characters. Dying on the operating table is a fear many viewers have, and so while Beetlejuice isn’t a horror movie, there is something unsettling about seeing the Man In Hospital Robes in the waiting room sequence.
8 Purple-Skinned Man
Cause Of Death: Choking
One man who appears in the Neitherworld waiting room while Adam and Barbara are awaiting their appointment with Juno has purple-tinted skin. The man, who has short black hair, appears to have died by choking or some sort of asphyxiation due to the purple tint of his flesh. However, since he doesn’t talk and (like the other waiting room ghosts) he background isn’t elaborated on, this is purely guess-work.
The discoloration of his skin also suggests this particular ghost could have drowned. The Purple-Skinned Man only appears briefly in the Beetlejuice waiting room scene, but can be seen sitting between the Magician’s Assistant and Harry the Hunter while Adam and Barbara initially speak to the waiting room’s receptionist, Miss Argentina.
7 Diver/Swimmer
Cause Of Death: Shark Attack
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Among the more unexpected deaths seen in Beetlejuice‘s Neitherworld waiting room is a man who died from a shark attack. The character only appears briefly when Adam and Barbara are waiting to see Juno, but it’s highly memorable as the ghost is still wearing his diving mask and swim trunks while holding onto his oxygen tank, with the shark that killed him still hanging from his leg. The green-tinted ghost was so memorable that he even made it into Beetlejuice‘s official poster, as he’s seen with the shark dangling from his leg while sitting on the Maitland/Deetz family’s Winter River house.
The green-tinted ghost was so memorable that he even made it into
Beetlejuice
‘s official poster, as he’s seen with the shark dangling from his leg while sitting on the Maitland/Deetz family’s Winter River house.
Oddly, it seems that the diver’s tragic death from the 1988 movie could receive a callback in Tim Burton’s upcoming Beetlejuice 2 film. It’s been confirmed that Jeffrey Jones’ Charles Deetz is dead in Beetlejuice 2, but the promotional materials haven’t revealed exactly how his demise came to be other than that it was an unexpected tragedy. However, the tease of Charles’ funeral scene in Beetlejuice 2‘s trailer gives a glimpse of the character’s headstone, which is in the shape of a shark fin. As such, it’s possible that, like the man in the original movie, Charles Deetz may have died from a shark attack.
6 Man With Chicken Bone In Neck
Cause Of Death: Choking On A Chicken Bone
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At least two ghosts in the Beetlejuice Neitherworld waiting room appear to have died by choking based on the briefly-featured characters’ appearances. One ghost is even seen with a chicken bone still lodged in his neck after choking to death on it, with this deceased man also still having a chicken bib wrapped around his neck.
Considering the bone is lodged in his neck, this begs the question of how the ghost will be able to speak to his afterlife caseworker. Sadly, the deceased man’s appearance means he’ll always be reminded of the meal that killed him while spending his remaining allocated days in the afterlife. Like the Magician’s Assistant, this particular waiting room ghost has one of the of the most immediately hilarious character designs.
5 Woman In Sleeping Bag
Cause of death: Rattlesnake bite
One of the more shocking causes of deaths seen among the ghosts in the Neitherworld waiting room is a woman who died from a rattlesnake bite. On what appears to have been a camping trip that ends in disaster, one ghost who is next to the deceased diver is seen still standing in her sleeping bag with the lethal rattlesnake’s tail peering out of the bag.
Since she died while lying down in her sleep, the character’s hair is also standing up as if she were horizontal, which makes the laws of gravity in Beetlejuice‘s afterlife all the more curious. This particular ghost also opens up several questions about what comes with a person to the afterlife. While death from a rattlesnake bit should result in a ghost with a bite mark, it instead brings the ghost of a sleeping bag and a rattlesnake to the Neitherworld too.
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4 College Football Team
Cause Of Death: Bus Crash
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Some of the most iconic ghosts featured in Tim Burton’s 1988 cult classic horror-comedy movie are members of the deceased college football team, who return at the end of Beetlejuice when Lydia dances to a Harry Belafonte song. When Adam and Barbara meet with Sylvia Sidney’s Juno for the first time, the dead football players are in Juno’s office and don’t seem to realize that they’re dead, despite already being quite decayed. Juno explains that the football team died in a bus crash, seemingly on the way to one of their games. However, some of the team survived the vehicle accident, as Juno reveals that the team’s real coach lived after the players continue to refer to her as their coach.
The dead football team in Beetlejuice is actually loosely inspired by a real event, as the Marshall University Football Team experienced a tragic plane crash in 1970. The real crash sadly resulted in the deaths of all 37 college football players, eight members of the coaching staff, 25 team boosters, a charter coordinator, and the four members of the plane’s crew. After more than 50 years, the tragedy is regarded as one of the most devastating accidents in sports history.
3 Messenger (Carmen Filpi)
Cause Of Death: Ran Over By Vehicle
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Another ghost featured in the Neitherworld waiting room who makes a memorable appearance is the Messenger, who guides Adam and Barbara from the waiting area into Juno’s office. The Messenger is completely flattened with tire tracks all over him, indicating that he died from being run over by a large vehicle. However, the rules of the afterlife indicate that there’s another layer to his death given the fact that he now acts as a civil servant in Beetlejuice‘s Neitherworld, suggesting that being fatally run over was a death by suicide.
In the afterlife, the Messenger is carried around the Neitherworld by hanging from a track on the ceiling. These tracks run to gaps in the wall which allow the messenger to easily travel from department to department, and it’s clear that those who take their own lives by jumping in front of a vehicle become a particularly important part of the Neitherworld’s corporate infrastructure.
2 Green-Skinned Man
Cause Of Death: Unknown
One mysterious ghost who can be spotted in Beetlejuice‘s Neitherworld waiting room scene with Adam and Barbara Maitland is a green-skinned man. His cause of death isn’t made clear by his appearance, as he simply has green skin and wears a suit while sitting between the man who died from open-heart surgery and Beetlejuice‘s Char Man.
While purple-tinted skin in the afterlife appears to suggest that a ghost died from asphyxiation, the green color on some ghosts’ skin doesn’t appear to give any indication of how they died. There’s nothing really at all in his character design that sheds light on the death of the Green-Skinned man in the Beetlejuice waiting room, despite several decades of fans rewatching the movie and keeping an eye out.
1 Ghost Standing Against The Wall
Cause Of Death: Unknown
One ghost is a bit hard to spot in the first Neitherworld waiting room scene in Tim Burton’s 1988 Beetlejuice movie. When Adam and Barbara are ushered into the office by the Messenger ghost, another deceased individual can be seen leaning against the wall by the door, standing near the ghost who died from open-heart surgery.
The cause of his death isn’t clear considering how briefly he can be seen in the sequence, but it’s all the more curious given the grayish tint of his skin. With so many hidden ghosts scattered around the Neitherworld waiting room in Beetlejuice, it’s likely that Tim Burton will create plenty more unique specters for eagle-eyed viewers to spot in the 2024 sequel.
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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.
Director Tim Burton Release Date March 30, 1988 Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Writers Michael McDowell , Larry Wilson , Warren Skaaren Cast Catherine O’Hara , Michael Keaton , Geena Davis , Alec Baldwin , Winona Ryder , Jeffrey Jones Runtime 92 minutes Sequel(s) Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Budget $15 million Expand