How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Beetlejuice.
Quote #7
LYDIA: Why were you guys creeping around in Delia's bedroom?
ADAM: We were trying to scare your mother.
LYDIA: Stepmother. Anyway, you can't scare her. She's sleeping with Prince Valium tonight.
For the first time in the movie, Lydia clarifies her relationship with Delia. Of course, the icy looks made it pretty clear up until now. There's no love lost between this girl and her slightly clichéd wicked stepmother.
Quote #8
DELIA: Ghosts. You're telling me we have ghosts in this house. Those pictures are of ghosts. Are they? Ghosts! Lydia, I am giving a dinner party tonight for seven people. My agent, Bernard, is bringing a woman who writes for Art in America. In fact, no one dining here this evening has not been in Vanity Fair. Except you.
LYDIA: I told them you were too mean to be afraid.
DELIA: Don't you dare speak to others about me! The only thing that scares me is being embarrassed in front of the few hip people I can get to set foot in this part of Connecticut. So let's play family just for tonight.
We love this scene. Maybe it's the way Catherine O'Hara chops veggies while she talks or the way she dresses down her teenage stepdaughter for never having appeared in Vanity Fair? These few lines capture Delia's character so perfectly—she's desperate to be loved by important, artsy people and she most certainly does not have time to entertain her stepdaughter's ghostly fantasies. The comment about "playing family" is very telling about how things operate with this bunch.
Quote #9
CHARLES: Maybe this was all a bad idea.
DELIA: I didn't say anything. Oh, who are we kidding, Charles? You've never had a bad idea.
CHARLES: Yeah? Yeah, this could all work out. Home. Though I'm not sure that this is the right environment for Lydia. Snakes. Ghosts.
DELIA: Shrimp.
Could Charles be thinking about Lydia's well-being for once? Could Delia actually be complimenting her husband?