Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the next Don't Starve movie rewrite, this time of the Tim Burton film Beetlejuice! Say it once, say it twice, third time's the charm—

I start getting into a Halloween-y mood about this time of year, which is good, because by my calculations, I have to start posting this now to have it done by Halloween. Updates are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and fewer worries with this one, seeing as how I have all but the last few chapters written up. Good things. Of course, because of this, the first several chapters are a couple of years old and not as polished as my writing generally is at this point so…bear with me.

Like with other Don't Starve rewrites, we're drawing heavily from the game while still referencing the movie, complete with characters from the movie. We still have the main characters playing the characters from the movie—three guesses who gets to play Beetlejuice. :)

So, without further ado—it's showtime!

Don't Starve ? 2013 Klei Entertainment

Beetlejuice ? 1988 Tim Burton

It started in the most appropriate way, Wilson felt: completely unexpected.

Precisely two years ago, Wilson Percival Higgsbury had put an ad in the paper for a roommate. It wasn't for any special reason; he would have been perfectly fine puttering along by himself in the nice house on the hill outside the charming town of Shanter, working on his science and listening to his records and his radio.

Unfortunately, he couldn't afford the house by himself on his salary, he continually forgot to buy groceries, and—as the annoying real estate lady was fond of dropping in and reminding him—the house was way too big for just himself.

So it was with great trepidation that he put the following ad in the Shanter Sentential:

One Wilson Percival Higgsbury respectfully requests an experiment-roommate to lodge within 2013 Klei Avenue (the white house on the hill). Roommates are expected to assist with rent and groceries. Those with aversions to science, loud unexpected noises, and/or 78 rpm music need not apply.

Wilson, however, did not expect to get any replies. Not only was he unsure of his wording in his quest for a tolerable roommate (he honestly had not expected the paper to retain his deletion), but quite a few people within Shanter Town were of the opinion that that particular house was haunted. It offended him as a scientist to even have that suggested to him.

And so, he was not expecting the phone to ring one glorious science-filled afternoon.

It was with great difficulty that he extricated himself from his experiment and stumbled over to the wall-mounted phone. He snatched up the earpiece and barked an irritated "What?" into the mouthpiece.

"Please tell me this isn't the white house on the hill."

Wilson blinked, but allowed his ire to return. "It is. What do you want?"

"2013 Klei Avenue?"

"Yes. Is there going to be a point to this conversation, or should I hang up now?"

"I was calling about the roommate opening, but if this is the reaction I'm going to get—"

"What?" Wilson blurted, and then slapped himself in the head. "Oh, the roommate! I'm terribly sorry—I quite literally forgot all about it."

There was an indignant noise at the other end of the line. Oh boy—the first caller for this he ever got and he had already alienated them. "Um, I don't suppose you'd…still like to see the house?"

There was an irritated huff at the other end, but whoever finally said:

"I'll be there around two."


Wilson had been grateful for the hour of cleaning he had been able to squeeze in. He even managed to make some tea while he was at it.

He had then proceeded to be surprised when he went out on the porch and saw a young woman coming up the drive.

"You're not the person interested in the room, are you?" he blurted, before he could stop himself.

"You're not the idiot who answered the phone, are you?" she shot back.

Wilson flushed red; he didn't have a response to that. "Well, ah…I suppose…." He waved her in to put a stop to the stammering. "Won't you come in?"

She flounced by him. Wilson resisted slapping himself upside the head and followed her in.

Tea was served, introductions were made; her name was Willow Burnshigh, and she disliked him immensely.

She was about a head shorter than Wilson and perhaps a half-a-dozen years younger, with a similar dark shade of hair and similar pale shade of skin. She was wearing a ruddy red blouse and black skirt, hose, and shoes. Her hair was tied in pigtails and her face wore a look of resignation.

"If this is how the entire tour is going to go, then I must inform you that there are other lodgings in town," Wilson said testily.

"Actually, there isn't," Willow informed him. "Otherwise, I wouldn't even be here."

Wilson gritted his teeth and bore it. There was no choice, apparently.

He gave one of the fastest house tours known to man (with the exception of the attic—that was his, no ifs ands or buts), and was pleased to see her panting from the exertion. "Well, if you find this place isn't to your liking, then might I recommend not moving just yet?" Wilson suggested.

"Tough, star-head," Willow snapped. "I'm going to the boarding school in town—I need a place to stay, so I guess we're stuck with each other."

"No we are not—I have the right to refuse—"

"This offer was sitting on the market for three months—you can't afford to be chintzy, and unfortunately neither can I." She picked up the suitcase she had deposited in the living room and marched up the steps. "Like it or not, lame-brain, you've got a roommate."

"My name is Wilson Percival Higgsbury, thank you very much!" he yelled after her.

He groaned and sank into the nearest available chair the minute she was gone.

What was he going to do?


For the first month or so, they studiously avoided each other.

This made little things like meals a problem, but Wilson had solved that by installing a little refrigerator in the attic. An attic in which he was being as noisy as he possibly could.

"Could you keep it down?" she would yell at least once a day. "You sound like a ghoul up there!"

"And you sound like a witch down there!" he would shout back.

It gave Wilson great pleasure the first week or so, before he had a chance to verify her story. Yes, he really was her only choice in the whole town. The boarding school had apparently maxed its occupation. This led to Wilson focusing on simply avoiding her. She'd leave come the holiday.

Except when it came round, she didn't leave.

"Don't you have someplace to be?" he asked her, probably the first sentence he had spoken to her in a month.

"Don't you?" she shot back.

That served as their full interaction for another month, until a summer storm knocked out their electricity.

That was fun.

Wilson was in the basement holding a flashlight in his teeth and trying to fix the electricity whilst fighting off Willow and her lighter trying to do the same thing. There was a lot of fighting before either of them realized that the electricity was out over the whole town, and that they weren't getting any light that night.

Willow demonstrated her proficiency with fire by going out to the back, making a small fire pit, and cooking some hot dogs over them.

It took Wilson an hour to get over his pride, grab a lawn chair, and go out and sit by the fire.

"What do you want?" Willow groused.

"A Nobel prize and scientific acclaim," Wilson declared. "In the meantime, I'll settle for a hot dog on a stick."

More grumbling, but eventually she provided one.

Wilson let it toast for a bit before trying to break the silence.

"So what do you want?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"I've realized," he declared. "That we've been roommates for nearly half a year, and yet we've hardly spoken a civil word to each other. And to be frank, I'm sick of it." He took a deep breath. "I…I formally apologize for my reaction and continued behavior towards you."

She stared at him for a beat. "You were that hungry, huh?"

"No," Wilson said, a little frustrated. "It's just…I'm quite used to not talking to anyone, but not when there's someone in the house—and frankly, it offends me as a gentleman to continue in such a vein."

She made a dissatisfied noise and glared at the ground between her feet.

More silence.

"I'm…sorry too," she said finally. "I guess we've both been stupid."

"I guess."

They spent the night out there, talking and feeding the fire and moving on to marshmallows once all the hot dogs were gone. She had gone to the finishing school to get away from her home town, where she would always have the stigma and the glare from her numerous foster families. He had moved there to practice his science away from disapproving eyes. She liked The Who, Deep Purple, and Caro Emerald. He liked CCR, Three Dog Night, and Harry Belafonte. They both liked cheesy monster movies.

It was about noon the next day when Wilson—rubbing his eyes and rolling his neck—noticed the house lights were back on. "Oh, how about that—we appear to have electricity again."

"Goody," she noised; she had ceased to make proper intelligible sentences after about three.

"I suppose we should go back in now," Wilson opined, years of sleepless nights enabling him to still be alert. He looked back at her. "Willow?"

He got up and snapped his fingers in front of her; she was asleep.

Wilson shrugged; well, she probably wasn't used to keeping late nights.

He carefully scooped her up; instantly regretted it when he realized he wasn't fit to lift a hundred pounds, but managed to get her to the couch. No need to let her get sunburnt or waterlogged.

After that, they became tolerant of each other, and then friendly, actually eating meals with each other and dancing to records in the living room and watching movies late at night and going to town together to get groceries and discussing myriad subjects as he worked on his experiments in the attic and she played with the model town he had painstakingly made….

And then when he realized that it was coming up on that precise date, two years later, that they met, Wilson decided to do something spectacular, touching, and just a bit insane.

He was going to ask Miss Willow Burnshigh to marry him.