20 ‘Halloween’ Easter Eggs and References

Initially, John Carpenter’s original 1978 film was going to be called The Babysitter Murders. When it was discovered that no film had ever been given the simple title of Halloween in the past, the choice was made to retitle the movie. Still, this working title was referenced in David Gordon Green’s 2018 film.

When the bus crashes, setting all of the inmates free, the Haddonfield police notice that Michael Myers is among the missing. To refresh a colleague’s memory, Will Patton’s Hawkins says Myers is responsible for “the babysitter murders” in 1978 – a clear nod to the original title of the first film.

In the credits of the 1978 film, Nick Castle is not credited as Michael Myers, but rather as The Shape. Of course, this nickname comes from the way Michael stalks from the shadows, sometimes appearing to be nothing more than a silhouette. However, nobody in the film actually refers to Michael this way, and it’s something only big Halloween fans know as another name for Michael Myers.

Finally, in 2018, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) refers to Michael by his special name in a scene from Green’s film. After watching Michael being loaded onto a transport bus, Laurie later breaks down while with her family, telling them, “I saw him… The Shape!” Typically reserved for the end credits, it was fun to actually hear someone call Michael by this name in the film.

Halloween: Resurrection is one of the most lambasted of all the Halloween sequels. This is in part due to the decision to casually kill off Laurie Strode in the beginning of the film. Still, Green and his crew found a way to throw a casual reference to the film’s subtitle, and it’s probably easy to miss.

There’s a scene where the two podcasters stop at a gas station to fill up their car. Outside, Aaron (Jefferson Hall) notices a vehicle with painted lettering spelling out, “Resurrection Church.” This seems to be a sly nod to the title of the Busta Rhymes sequel.

Between the fourth, fifth, and sixth films in the series, a subplot reveals that Michael Myers is part of the Thorn cult. He’s clearly marked as such, because on his wrist is a symbol known as the Mark of the Thorn. Because every sequel to come after these films ignores this storyline, it would seem that the Thorn cult’s time in the franchise is long over.

However, there does seem to a a hidden Thorn symbol in the film. When Dana is in a gas station bathroom stall, a curious piece of graffiti can be seen on the wall next to her. At first glance, it appears to be a simple drawing of a cartoon dog’s head. However, if you look closely, you can see that its mouth is made with that familiar triangle with the line under it. It could be coincidental, but considering the drawing’s placement, and the lack of any other graffiti in the stall, it seems to be deliberate.

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Speaking of Dana in the bathroom, this entire scene pays tribute to something similar which occurred in another Halloween movie. When Michael finds her inside, he attacks, leading to Dana crawling underneath the stalls to try and escape. Inevitably, Michael manages to get ahold of her, ultimately choking her to death in one of the stalls.

In Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, a woman and her young daughter stop at a rest area to use a bathroom which looks very similar to the one in the 2018 film. The two enter adjoining stalls, where they are trapped when Michael comes inside. Fortunately, Michael is content with merely grabbing the mother’s purse and stealing her car, and harms neither the woman nor her daughter.

A new key character to be introduced in this film is psychiatrist Ranbir Sartain (Haluk Bilginer). Essentially, Dr. Sartain is the “new Loomis,” as Laurie Strode even says to him personally in the film. The major twist of the film, however, suggests Sartain is much more like another character from the series.

In The Curse of Michael Myers, a twist reveals that Dr. Wynn – the chief administrator of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium where Michael spent his childhood – has actually been evil all along. In fact, was Wynn who presumably gave Michael driving lessons and facilitated his escape in the original film. Given how Dr. Sartain is willing to murder police officers to keep Michael on the streets, the character’s actions channel Dr. Wynn much more than Dr. Loomis. Perhaps you could say he’s an amalgamation of both characters.

In the 1978 film, Laurie’s friend Lynda and her bespectacled boyfriend Bob have the most memorable death scenes. First, poor Bob is pinned against the wall with a large knife, with his body left to hang there like a portrait. Next, Michael wears a bedsheet over himself and puts on Bob’s glasses, fooling Lynda into believing it’s her boyfriend before Michael strangles her to death.

The new Halloween recreates these death scenes in a way, while adding some variation to it. This time, Allyson Strode’s friend Vicky and her boyfriend Dave are murdered, though both of their deaths occur off-screen. When the police arrive at the house, Dave is found pinned to a wall with a knife, just like Bob. Vicky’s body is then found in an upstairs bedroom wearing a ghost costume made from a white bedsheet, just like the one Michael wore in 1978.

Speaking of Lynda, did you know the woman who plays her, P.J. Soles, has a vocal cameo in the new film? There’s a scene with Allyson in a classroom, and while we can hear her teacher speaking, we’re not shown the character. The teacher’s voice is provided by none other than Soles, bringing in yet another name from the original film to work on the 2018 sequel.

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Michael Myers escapes in the new film after his transport bus crashes, leading to those locked inside to begin walking the streets. A father and his young son are the first to come across the scene, making for an eerie moment when they notice the escaped mental patients wandering around their car. When the two step outside of the car to investigate, Michael uses the opportunity to sneak inside and take the wheels for himself.

This is very similar to the original film, where Dr. Loomis and his colleague Marion Chambers arrive at Smith’s Grove to transfer Michael to court. They notice some of the patients wandering around outside, and Loomis exits the vehicle to see what’s happening. With Marion inside, Michael breaks in the car to steal it, escaping from the asylum. Fortunately, he didn’t kill anyone in the process this time, unlike in the new film.

In many ways, Laurie Strode takes some pages from the original film’s Michael Myers. One of the most obvious examples of this comes when Allyson is in school, peering out the window to see Laurie staring at her from outside. This directly channels when Michael did the exact same thing to her in the 1978 movie.

Another switcheroo comes closer to the end, when Michael tosses Laurie off of a balcony and onto the ground below. When Michael looks at the ground, he sees that Laurie has disappeared. Of course, this references the original film’s ending, when Michael vanished after being shot six times by Dr. Loomis and falling off of a balcony.

Michael Myers killed his first victim at the age of six, murdering his older sister Judith on Halloween night. Perhaps obsessed with his first kill, Michael steals her gravestone after his escape in the original movie, later placing it in a bed with Annie’s corpse in front of it. It makes for one of the eeriest shots of the film, by far.

In this sequel, the infamous tombstone is shown once again, but this time, it stays in the graveyard. Aaron and Dana visit Judith’s grave site in the Haddonfield cemetery, unaware that Michael is watching them. Although Michael leaves the stone this time, we’re able to get a good look at it, and it looks exactly the same as it did in the original.

When Michael Myers escapes from custody in the beginning of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, he heads to a nearby gas station and murders all of the employees. This includes a mechanic working on a car in the garage, stealing his clothing to gain his new trademark overalls. Dr. Loomis arrives soon after, discovering what Michael has done when he finds the corpses of the staff.

Virtually this same course of events happens for Halloween 2018, with Michael Myers killing the staff of a gas station and taking the mechanic’s overalls. Aaron finds their bodies soon after, channeling the way Loomis does so in H4. There’s a visual reference thrown in as well, as even the ice chest outside looks just like the one in the the third sequel.

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In John Carpenter’s original film, Laurie Strode can be heard singing an ominous song to herself, which goes, “I wish I had you all alone, just the two of us.” The words were written by Carpenter himself, as he couldn’t get the rights to use the lyrics of any actual songs. To reference this song, David Gordon Green went the extra mile by actually having a real version of the fictional song recorded.

When the father and son drive upon the bus accident in the new film, there’s a country song playing on the radio. If you pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll notice them to be the same ones Laurie sang in the original film.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers gets some love from the new film as well. One of the most clear examples of this is the choice of costume for Allyson’s friend, Oscar. Dressed as a red devil, Oscar’s simple outfit comes with a familiar cape and big horns, as it’s the same costume worn by Michael’s victim Samantha (Tamara Glynn) in H5.

Michael kills Laurie’s friend Annie Brackett in the original film by hiding in the backseat of her car. Through the fogged-up car window, we can see Michael choking Annie before finishing the job with a slash to the throat.

The young boy’s murder in the car in Halloween 2018 happens in very much the same way. After the boy gets into the driver seat to escape, Michael emerges from the back to strangle him from behind. As Michael chokes the poor kid, viewers are even shown a shot of the carnage from the outside of the car through the foggy window, looking eerily similar to Annie’s death in 1978.

In the original movie, Laurie Strode instructs the children she’s babysitting to run to a neighbor’s and call the police, adding, “Go, do as I say!” The short phrase has become a bit of a catch phrase for Laurie since then, as she repeated the line in H20, telling her son John (Josh Hartnett) and his girlfriend, “Do as I say, now!”

Of course, David Gordon Green couldn’t help but reference the line in 2018’s Halloween. This time, Laurie speaks the words to her granddaughter Allyson in a voicemail message, telling her, “We’re all gonna be together, now do as I say!”

Based on his behavior in the film, we can deduce that Allyson’s boyfriend, Cameron Elam, is a bit of a jerk. If you’re wondering why, perhaps it’s because the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, because his father Lonnie has always been a troublemaker as well. In the original film, Lonnie Elam is one of the bullies who can be seen taunting little Tommy Doyle.

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Although Halloween III: Season of the Witch doesn’t have Michael Myers, even this controversial sequel still manages to get some recognition in the new film. In that movie, the Silver Shamrock Novelties company sells three distinct masks of a pumpkin, a witch, and a skeleton. 2018’s Halloween shows three trick-or-treaters walking together, each wearing the three trademark Silver Shamrock masks.

One of the creepiest scenes of Halloween 2018 is the extended sequence of Michael Myers going from one house to another, slaughtering unsuspecting victims. He first sneaks into a home with a hammer, murdering a woman in a red robe who’s cutting ham. Michael replaces the hammer with a kitchen knife, proceeding to kill the woman next door as well.

This whole scene is very similar to what happens in the beginning of Halloween II. Michael sneaks into the home of a woman in a red robe, who’s been cutting ham in the kitchen. Fortunately for her, Michael spares her and only steals the knife, then heading next door to attack someone else. This victim is wearing similar clothing to the second woman killed in the 2018 scene, making the whole thing feel like a bit of a recreation of Halloween II‘s opening.

The role of Michael Myers is predominately played by James Jude Courtney in the new film, however both he and original actor Nick Castle are credited for the role. As it turns out, Castle provided the breathing for the character, and although Courtney is behind the mask for 99% of the film, there is a key moment where it’s Castle himself who wears the mask.

When Laurie Strode first sees Michael Myers in the new film, she notices him glaring at her from an upstairs window. At this moment, Michael does the iconic head tilt which was first established by Castle in the original movie. Laurie shoots at him, revealing the image to be in a mirror. This is the one and only moment Castle physically appears in character as Michael in the movie, so it’s only appropriate he was able to do his trademark move.

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