25 reasons why we still love Beetlejuice
By G.G. Andrew
Screenshot of official Beetlejuice trailer via warnerbros.com.
19. The Sandworms
In an initial effort to escape the house, and then the Deetzes, Adam and Barbara try to leave their house. But they discover that when they step off their property, they are thrust into a desert-like plane of existence. This plane is filled with rolling hills under a blue sky with swiftly moving clouds, dotted with misshapen plant life—not to mention giant worms with sharp teeth.
According to a newspaper Beetlejuice himself is reading at the beginning (perhaps published by a subsidiary of Handbook for the Recently Deceased Press?), these sandworms are a real threat, and have increased by 13% in recent times. To the Maitlands, whose life with the unpleasant Deetzes is a sort of psychological hell, the sandworms are a physical hell and represent a fear of being painfully eaten alive.
When the sandworms widen their jaws to gobble up the two, they’re also shown as worms-within-worms, the monster equivalent of Russian nesting dolls and calling to mind creatures like the sarlacc in Return of the Jedi, with its gaping mouth, several rows of teeth, and ability to dissolve prey over thousands of years. It’s the neverending-horrors version of hell common to popular culture. What if it’s just sharp-toothed snakes all the way down?
Between the sandworms and the Deetzes, the Maitlands are posed between two very different, but equally unpleasant, hells.