10 Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Horror Movies
10.
Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock is known for making cameos in almost all of his films, but one that many
people miss is hidden in one of his best known and well regarded movies: the grandfather
of slasher films, 1960’s Psycho.
At the 6 minute and 39 second mark, you can see Hitchcock through the window when Marion
Crane (Janet Leigh) walks into the bank where she works.
Hitchcock is standing on the street, wearing a Stetson hat and looking away from the bank.
It’s one of his best hidden cameos, but one that’s a bit harder to find happens
in the film Lifeboat, which takes place in, obviously, a lifeboat adrift on the ocean.
In that film, Hitchcock’s picture is in an ad for Reduco Obesity Slayer, which is
on a newspaper that one of the characters is reading.
9.
Silent Hill
Based on the moody and atmospheric video game of the same name, Silent Hill is a frustratingly
mediocre film.
It’s about a woman named Rose, who has an adopted daughter named Sharon.
Sharon sleepwalks while repeating the words “Silent Hill,” which turns out to be the
name of a town.
Looking for answers, Rose and Sharon head to the desolate and constantly foggy village.
Once there, Sharon disappears and Rose scours the town looking for her.
There are two unique Easter eggs that are nods to horror classics.
The first is when Rose comes upon a school called Midwich.
This is a reference to The Midwich Cuckoos, which was adapted into the 1960 film The Village
of the Damned.
The second Easter egg is when Rose comes across a movie theater that is showing a double feature
– The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man.
These films are based on the same book, I Am Legend, which was written by sci-fi and
horror great Richard Matheson.
8.
Godzilla (2014)
While it could be debated that Godzilla isn’t a horror movie, the fact that it’s about
giant monsters wreaking havoc is enough for us to consider it one.
That being said, Godzilla contains a few great Easter eggs.
One of the first happens in the opening credits, when the words are being redacted from the
screen.
As Bryan Cranston’s name appears on the screen, it says, “Walter Malcolm has claimed
that government men dressed in white lab coats routinely appear at site and BRYAN CRANSTON
shortly after the event all residents are sworn to silence.”
Malcolm is a connection to Cranston’s second most famous role, Hal in Malcolm in the Middle.
Then, as the words are redacted, the words “Walter” and “White” are left on the
screen and everyone should probably know what that’s a reference to.
Another Easter egg is the name of the ship that accidentally discovers Godzilla: the
Nautilus.
The Nautilus is a reference to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is about
a submarine called the Nautilus that also has a problem with a large monster.
Finally, a third Easter egg can be seen in Ford Brody’s room when he was younger; his
walls are decorated with posters from old Godzilla films.
7.
Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2
The first two Insidious films have some of the more creepy Easter eggs in the horror
genre.
In the first film when Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne) is tidying up the second house the
family moves into, there’s a single shot that tracks her as she walks through the home.
It seems pretty innocuous, but as she puts clothes in the basket, you can see the Dancing
Boy ghost facing the wall beside the coats that are hanging up.
If you watch the video above, you’ll see him at about the 32 second mark.
There’s a similar Easter egg in the sequel, Insidious: Chapter 2.
Again, Renai is doing housework when the detective calls.
As she’s walking through the house, talking on the phone, if you look to the very right
of the screen you can see the ghost of Parker Crane in another room, but as Renai moves
towards that room, the ghost disappears.
6.
Cloverfield
This found footage film about a monster attacking New York City is framed in an interesting
way.
At the beginning of the film, it’s presented as a classified video collected from a personal
recording by the United States Department of Defense.
On a few of the title cards, it briefly flashes an octagon logo a number of times.
That logo should be familiar to fans of the television show Lost because it’s the logo
of the Dharma Initiative, a secret research program that was involved in fringe science.
That’s no coincidence, since Lost creator JJ Abrams produced Cloverfield.
Another Easter egg can be found at the very end of the closing credits.
During the final song, there’s a garbled walkie-talkie transmission.
It’s indecipherable upon first listening to it, but if you listen to it backward it
says, “it’s still alive.”
Finally, an even more obscure Easter egg in the final scene may give a clue to the monster’s
origins.
After the climax of the film, it cuts to a clip of main characters Rob and Beth on a
Ferris wheel on Coney Island, months before the events of the movie.
The shot lingers on the water for a few moments and at first it seems to be a pretty simple
scene with nothing too interesting to note, except to remind the audience that the characters
were real people.
But, if you watch the shot of the water, on the right hand side, something falls from
the sky into the water.
This has led people to believe that the monster came from space.
5.
Shaun of the Dead
The first film in The Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy, Shaun of the Dead, is littered with
Easter eggs that are references to other great zombie movies.
For example, when Shaun is looking for a restaurant to take his girlfriend to, he opens the phone
book and finds a listing for a restaurant called Fulci.
That’s a nod to the Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci, who is known for his 1979 film Zombie
(aka Zombi 2).
Another reference to a great horror icon is the store where Shaun works, which is called
Foree Electronics.
Ken Foree is the actor who played Peter in the zombie classic Dawn of the Dawn.
Another reference is that the first zombie that Shaun and Ed encounter, Mary, works at
a grocery store called Landis.
John Landis is the director of American Werewolf in London and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
The Easter eggs and references come fast and furious – so much so that even George Romero
didn’t pick up on a reference to his most famous film when Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
screened Shaun for him.
When Shaun and Ed are getting off the phone before going to save Shaun’s mom, Ed assures
her, “We’re coming to get you, Barbara!”
This is a clear reference to the most famous line from Night of the Living Dead.
One final Easter egg of note is where the trilogy got its name from.
Cornetto is an ice cream company based in the UK, and in each film in the trilogy Pegg’s
and Nick Frost’s characters eat a flavor with a color that’s symbolic to the film.
In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun and Ed can be seen eating a red Cornetto ice cream cone
just before they clue in that it’s the zombie apocalypse.
Why they chose red should be fairly obvious.
As for the colors in the other films, it’s blue in Hot Fuzz as a reference to the police
and green for The World’s End because of the alien/sci-fi angle.
4.
The Evil Dead and Nightmare on Elm Street
In 1984’s horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street, there’s a scene when Nancy is
nodding off to sleep while watching a movie.
The camera shows a clip of the movie: 1981’s The Evil Dead.
While this is a fairly obvious Easter egg, what may not be as obvious is the Easter egg
in The Evil Dead’s 1987 sequel.
To return the favor of using the clip, Sam Raimi included a reference to Nightmare in
Evil Dead II.
In the tool shed, just beside the door, you can see the actual Freddie Kruger glove that
was used in the first Nightmare and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
After Raimi borrowed it, the original glove was believed to have been lost until 2011,
when Nightmare enthusiast Mike Becker found it after an online auction sold it as a replica
used in later films.
He was able to buy it from the original buyer and it’s thought to be the genuine article
that was used in the first two movies.
Robert Englund, who played Freddy Kruger in every movie except for the remake, said that
he believes that Becker’s glove is the original.
3.
The Cabin in the Woods
One of the most innovative and original horror movies of the past few years is The Cabin
in the Woods.
As mentioned in the introduction, this is definitely an entry that contains spoilers.
So if you haven’t seen the film, please do yourself the courtesy and watch this movie
before reading this entry.
As for those who have seen it, you’ll know that The Cabin in the Woods starts off as
a cabin slasher film, but of course, it goes off in a completely different direction.
The major twist is that there is a warehouse of nightmare creatures that is meant to kill
off sacrifices to appease The Ancient Ones.
Since the film is so referential to other horror movies, there are plenty of Easter
eggs hidden in the film.
To go through and name all of them would take a long time; in fact, there’s a visual companion
book to the film.
But some of the more interesting ones are seen on the white board that’s used to take
bets.
For example, Angry Molesting Tree and Deadites are references to The Evil Dead, as is the
title and the setting of the film.
Other monsters include twins, which can be seen in the warehouse and look almost identical
to the twins in The Shining.
Then there’s a reference to Joss Whedon’s beloved cult show Firefly.
One of the monsters, who appear in the movie, but not on the board, is a Reaver, which are
animalistic humans from Firefly and the film Serenity.
Besides just the monsters themselves, there are even further details in the film, such
as each item in the cellar is linked to a creature.
For example, Curt (Chris Hemsworth) almost unlocks the puzzle box that would unleash
a Pinhead from Hellraiser type monster.
2.
The Silence of the Lambs
Arguably the greatest serial killer movie of all-time is the Academy Award-winning The
Silence of the Lambs.
Early on in the film, Hannibal Lecter is locked up in a psychiatric hospital when he’s visited
by FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling.
Starling tries to get Hannibal to do a questionnaire, which leads to one of the most memorable quotes
in movie history: “A census-taker once tried to test me.
I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
It turns out this is actually a clue that Hannibal was giving Clarice, though she obviously
never picked up on it.
When the book was written in 1988, it was common to treat psychiatric patients with
monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI).
When someone is on MAOIs, they have to avoid certain foods and drinks because it can cause
the blood pressure to go up and could result in death.
And three foods that could be deadly to people taking MAOIs are liver, fava beans, and red
wine.
Hannibal was flat out telling Starling that he wasn’t taking his medication, which aided
in his escape later in the film.
1.
The Shining
The Shining has so many layers and is so dense with possible meaning that there’s a documentary
about theories surrounding the film called Room 237.
One example is that clues in the film are hints that Stanley Kubrick was involved in
staging the moon landing.
Besides that theory, there are few other Easter eggs that make the film a lot creepier.
The first one is when Jack is in the busy hotel lobby waiting to meet his new boss while
reading a Playgirl magazine.
It’s a hint that something odd is going on in the hotel.
This is seen again through the power of the hotel itself.
In one scene, there’s a shot of Jack, and after it cuts away and then back to Jack,
a chair and table that were in the background have vanished.
Then there’s a TV that works, but doesn’t have an electrical cord.
Finally, there’s the set-up of the hotel.
In a number of scenes, there are windows on the wall that show the Torrances are in a
corner room.
But when Wendy and Danny are fleeing for their lives, their room is in the middle of the
hotel.
These could have been mistakes, but most people don’t believe so because of how detail orientated
Kubrick was.
He was obsessed with everything that appeared in the frame and these were not subtle mistakes.
Another Easter egg is when Dick Hallorann is driving up to the hotel.
He comes across an accident where a red Volkswagen Beetle has been crushed.
It’s an interesting choice for the wrecked car considering that’s the car the Torrances
drive in Stephen King’s book, whereas in the film they’re driving a yellow Beetle.
This is quite symbolic because King hated all the changes Kubrick made in
the film.