It's showtime! Orthodontist turns office into ‘Beetlejuice' experience for Halloween

Dr. Beetlejuice! Dr. Beetlejuice! Dr. Beetlejuice!

Say his name three times and he’ll appear to help give you the perfect smile.

Long Island orthodontist Scott Mateer dressed as the famous pale-faced, green-haired ghost this week when his entire office was transformed into a “Beetlejuice” experience for Halloween. Mateer was so dedicated that he even temporarily sabotaged his own teeth by painting them with enamel to replicate Beetlejuice’s rotten smile.

“My teeth look very gross,” Mateer said. “Don’t brush like me!”

That advice was given to patients who visited him, after they made their way through the afterlife’s waiting room, past the attic containing the Maitland's model village, through the graveyard where Beetlejuice’s headstone lies, down the dizzying hallway lined with slanted doorways, underneath the sandworm breaking through the ceiling and into the dental chair where shrunken-head Bob and Beetlejuice awaited.

Once seated … it’s showtime!

“I said that line so many times,” Mateer said. “I was telling people that when they got their braces off, every time they smile, they too should say, ‘It’s showtime!’”  

The ghost with the most

See more

It’s always showtime in October at Mateer's office as the staff prepares for what has become a highly anticipated Halloween tradition – with previous themes including “Stranger Things” and “Harry Potter.” Rooms become meticulously recreated sets, employees become highly detailed characters and patients become unexpectedly immersed spectators.   

“It has morphed over time from what I consider to be good costumes into more of an experience,” Mateer said. “Three years ago we did ‘Stranger Things,’ then once you create a precedent, everyone is asking for more.”

So, they were given more by the ghost with the most.

Upon entering the waiting room, patients didn’t have to take a number like Beetlejuice when he was 9,998,383,750,000 in line.    

They simply had to check in for their appointment at the front desk, which for the occasion was extended to the ceiling and enclosed using wood and corrugated metal to match the movie. And yes, there actually was a number ticket dispenser and “Now Serving” counter.  

Behind the desk’s window sat Miss Argentina, the red-haired, green-toned receptionist portrayed by the office’s actual receptionist, Dakota Falk.

“Every year we try to pick a theme and try to do it bigger and better than the year before,” she said. “We start like two months before … It’s a lot of time, it’s a lot of prep. It’s good teamwork, it’s good team building skills.”

The juice is loose

The office’s waiting room floor, a mix of ceramic tile and carpet, was covered with peel-and-stick, black-and-white checkered tiles.

“I thought they were going to be very temporary,” Mateer said of his new tile. “Turns out they are a little more robust than I thought. They look amazing, I’m just fearful about when I have to take them back up.”

Mannequins were styled as ghosts from the famed waiting room scene, including the charred skeleton smoking a cigarette, the witch doctor and the magician’s assistant who's sawed in half. Some patients who entered opted not to take a seat next to them, instead making a quick exit assuming they made a strange and unusual wrong turn.

“They walk through the door and they shut the door and walk back in again because they’re not sure they’re in the right place,” said Kristy Roocke, the treatment coordinator who dressed as Delia Deetz.

Once beyond the waiting room, they might cross paths dental assistants like Bob -- a.k.a Sonia Lopez --  who’d round the corner at full speed as his tiny head popped out of his oversized yellow suit. Or Lydia Deetz (Amy Coscia-Edmonds) in her sunglasses and red wedding dress, or her daughter Astrid Deetz (Felicia Cook), or Soul Sister (Tiana Nolan) or Beetlejuice’s scarred ex-wife Delores (Briceyda Ortez).

And, of course, lurking somewhere in the Netherland office, the juice is loose.

“We have some elements from the old movie and some from the new,” Mateer said, “and I think we’ve done a good job bringing it all together.”

Mateer also brought together the movie’s fictional town of Winter River, Connecticut, by recreating Adam Maitland’s village model that stands in the attic of the Deetz house. He created templates of each miniature house to match the dimensions and scale of those from the movie and then built them using shoe boxes, siding and wallpaper printouts and a hot glue gun.

You're working with a professional here!

“I learned a lot about crafting, that’s one thing,” he said. “I really tried to make it almost exactly as it is in the movie.”

Just like his costume, the makeup for which he did himself, even using silicone adhesive to glue green moss to his face. He rubbed dirt on his black and white striped suit, and he’ll do the same on Halloween eve for his formal wardrobe change into a maroon tuxedo. He made his black boots look ragged by going over them with a tool previously used to polish retainers. He ignored every lesson he learned in dental school by allowing his teeth to turn brown and rotten.    

“It just added to the costume,” Mateer said. “I knew his teeth were gross, and I had to bring that into it. Hopefully it comes off.”

If it doesn’t, just say the name Dr. Beetlejuice three times.