Season 1 Of "Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin" Is Packed With Horror References And Easter Eggs — Here Are The Ones I Caught
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If you're a horror fan and haven't been watching Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, you're missing out.
HBO Max / Via giphy.com
The series is full of references to the horror genre, including the Halloween franchise and Stephen King's Carrie.
HBO Max / Via giphy.com
The Carrie connection is no surprise, considering Original Sin showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa penned the screenplay for the 2013 remake.
Here are the ones I caught:
Episode 1
1.The title card font seen in this and every other episode is ITC Serif Gothic Heavy, the same one used in the Halloween movies.
2.Imogen's back-to-school outfit is super similar to the outfits worn by the creepy twins in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
3.The windows in Imogen's rooms are the same as ones in the Amityville Horror house.
4.The red lighting during the flashback of Karen is often used in the horror genre, including in Dario Argento's Suspiria, a movie that comes up several times throughout the season.
5.Tabby mentions Brian De Palma, who directed the original Carrie, and his films Body Double and Dressed To Kill.
6.Tabby's mom, Sidney Haworthe, is a nod to Sidney from the Scream series.
7.Tabby refers to Millwood High as a "Hellmouth," which is what the school in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series was built on.
8.Imogen and Tabby dropping off the keys at the Myers house mirrors Laurie Strode doing the same thing in John Carpenter's Halloween.
9.Karen's (and later Kelly's) yellow sweater/red skirt combo looks a lot like the Sunnydale cheerleading outfits from Buffy.
10.There's an Alfred Hitchcock poster on the back wall of the film class.
11.Tabby mentions doing a double feature of Jordan Peele's movies Get Out and Us at the Orpheum.
The actual showing happens in Episode 2.
12.The first text Tabby receives from A is a direct quote from Scream: "What's your favorite scary movie?" When she asks who's texting her, they reply, "Peeping Tom." Michael Powell's 1960 film Peeping Tom is considered by many to be a precursor to the slasher genre.
13.Imogen's first text from A instructs her to look out the window at school. When she does, she sees A outside staring at her, just like Laurie looked out the classroom window to see Michael in Halloween.
This also distracts Imogen from answering the teacher's question, just as it did Laurie.
14.Madame Giry is also the name of Meg's mother in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.
15.Faran is cast to play Odile in Swan Lake, just like Natalie Portman's character in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.
Faran also directly mentions the film later in the season.
16.Faran's mom, Corey Bryant, works at a law firm called Strode, Prescott, and Ripley Associates. Strode is, of course, Laurie's last name in the Halloween movies, Prescott is Sidney's in the Scream movies, and Ripley is Ellen's in the Alien movies.
17.The creepy school janitor named Jason is likely a nod to Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies.
18.Wes, the manager of the Orpheum, is named after horror director Wes Craven.
19.He's seen reading the "Masters of Horror" issue of Fangoria magazine, and Tabby asks if it includes "[John] Carpenter, [David] Cronenberg, and [Wes] Craven."
20.Not long after, Tabby also mentions the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.
That comes into play later.
21.Wes and Tabby parking in a secluded area is reminiscent of the scene between Alicia Witt and Joshua Jackson's characters in Jamie Blanks' Urban Legend.
22.While parked, Wes and Tabby talk about Ari Aster and his films Midsommar and Hereditary. Tabby also mentions David Fincher's movie Zodiac, which is based on the hunt for the Zodiac Killer.
23.A's overall look is very reminiscent of Michael Myers, specifically Rob Zombie's take on the character. Between the long hair and the jumpsuit, A looks a lot like a before-and-after of Myers in Zombie's first Halloween movie. The mask, while giving off Leatherface vibes, also resembles the masks worn by Myers before he puts on the infamous William Shatner mask.
24.Ash Romero combines the names of the lead characters of the Evil Dead franchise, Ash Williams, and famous horror director George A. Romero.
Ash's screenname is even AshVsEvilDead.
25.The episode closes out with Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl" — no doubt a nod to the director's entries into the Halloween franchise. The song also has other roots in horror, as part of the Bride of Chucky and Psycho remake soundtracks.
Episode 2
26.Tabby references both The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist in the same breath while she and the other girls are at Imogen's house.
She also puts a moratorium on jump scares moments later.
27.Tabby also mentions Jawbreaker — which is more of a very dark comedy but still horror-adjacent — not long after.
28.She also mentions Hannibal Lecter when asking Chip for a favor.
29.A poster for the 1942 horror movie Cat People is visible at the Orpheum.
30.Principal Clanton has posters for Sweeney Todd and The Phantom of the Opera in his office.
31.Tabby calls Karen a "female Patrick Bateman," as in the main character in American Psycho.
32.Moments later, she likens herself and the girls to "the Losers Club" from Stephen King's It.
33.When the girls are listing their favorite dance movies, Tabby says hers is Suspiria, Dario Argento's ballet-themed horror film.
34.The camera cuts between Imogen and her POV of the crowd as she walks up to the stage after being announced as Spirit Queen the same way in Carrie. Meanwhile, the shots of Karen up in the gym rafters, about to drench a newly crowned Imogen in red paint, are nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the moment Chris gets ready to drop pig's blood on Carrie in the film.
35.Of course, Karen doesn't get to carry out her plan and is instead thrown from the rafters by A. Imogen watching this all play out, the crown atop her head, reminded me of Helen watching Barry being killed at the Croaker Queen Pageant in I Know What You Did Last Summer, whether it was intended to or not.
Episode 3
36.As the girls gather right after Karen's death, Imogen tells them she saw a man in a mask push her, and Tabby asks if the mask is like the one in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
37.There's a poster for Joe Dante's The Howling above Tabby's bed.
38.Seeing the girls' legs from A's POV is similar to when we see the swimmers' legs from the shark's POV in Jaws.
39.There are posters for The Omen, Carrie, and Death Becomes Her seen hanging in the Orpheum.
40.The priest at Karen's funeral is named Father Karras, which is the name of the younger priest in The Exorcist.
41.After Imogen tells the rest of the girls what Mrs. Beasley said to her at Karen's funeral, Tabby says it's "Pet Sematary awful."
She later amends it to "Hereditary-level shit."
42.Wes mentions wanting to watch a Dario Argento movie; saying Suspiria would be the obvious choice. He later brings up Argento's film Profondo rosso (aka Deep Red).
Episode 4
43.While Tabby and Chip are at the Orpheum discussing what film scene they want to recreate, Chip suggests Sam Raimi's Evil Dead.
44.You can see a giant poster for the original Halloween behind them.
45.When Tabby is presenting her idea to recreate the shower scene from Psycho, various horror movie posters adorn the walls of the classroom, including The Dentist, Wishmaster, American Psycho, Nosferatu, Stir of Echoes, Return of the Living Dead III, and Silent Night, Deadly Night 3.
46.Part of the presentation includes mentions of Scream, Prom Night, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Black Christmas.
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47.Imogen finds a Ouija board (or spirit board in this case) in her house that she and the girls use to try to contact her mother.
48.There's a poster for Mario Bava's gothic horror film La maschera del demonio (aka Black Sunday) seen in Tabby's room.
49.After an emotional time with the Ouija board, Tabby says, "To quote Chucky, 'Friends to the end.'"
50.Tabby mentions that while Hitchcock used chocolate syrup for blood, she'll be using corn syrup with red food coloring in her Psycho scene, which, as Billy Loomis pointed out in Scream, is the same thing they used for pig's blood in Carrie.
Episode 5
51.The episode title, "The Night He Came Home," is the tagline for the original Halloween.
52.During a flashback to Angela vandalizing a house on Halloween, a voice inside the house calls out, "Michael, call the police!" This is likely a nod to Michael Myers.
53.Noa says that A "went full fucking Michael Myers" on her.
54.As Tabby's going down the stairs, Faran makes the creepy sound from Friday the 13th over the walkie talkie.
Tabby corrects her, pointing out that she should be saying "kee-kee-kee ma-ma-ma."
55.There's a poster for The Amityville Horror hanging in the Orpheum.
56.Someone at Pinball Pizza is wearing a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask.
57.Imogen is dressed up as Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby.
58.Noa and her boyfriend Shawn are dressed up as Morticia and Gomez Addams.
59.Mouse is dressed up as Casper the Friendly Ghost's pal Wendy the Good Little Witch.
60.Kelly is dressed as Annabelle from The Conjuring universe.
61.Chip is dressed as Donnie Darko.
62.Other costumes seen at Imogen's Halloween party include:
Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz
Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein
Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Dracula
63.Faran tells Henry she might have been going "full Natalie Portman Black Swan crazy."
64.Tabby and Chip talk about the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
She says Dream Warriors is her favorite Freddy.
65.The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman," which is practically the unofficial theme song for the Halloween franchise, is heard at the end of the episode.
66.There's a Suspiria poster hanging in Tabby's room.
Episode 6
67.The name England (as in Crazy Jo England) might be a nod to Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
68.The track coach is named after Rita Desjardin, the gym teacher in the original book version of Carrie and the 2002 and 2013 movie adaptations.
The character's name was changed to Miss Collins in the 1976 film.
69.The Radley is creepy in the same way as the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. It even looks similar to the Stanley Hotel, which served as the inspiration for the Overlook.
70.Tabby picks up a copy of Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws, a non-fiction book about horror.
Episode 7
71.The title of the episode, "Carnival of Souls," is the name of an indie horror movie from 1962.
72.Tabby refers to Sheriff Beasley as "Sheriff Slender Man."
73.Wes and Chip discuss doing a double feature of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left and the film that inspired it, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring.
74.Imogen names her fake baby Clarice, as in Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs.
Episode 8
75."Bad Blood" is the name of a werewolf movie from 2016.
76.There are posters for The Human Monster starring Bela Lugosi and Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses in the film classroom.
77....As well as a poster for Carrie when Tabby is talking about the blood drive.
78.And in the Orpheum, there are posters for the killer turkey movies ThanksKilling and ThanksKilling 3.
79.The scene where Imogen goes to check out Angela Waters' house is very similar to the scene in Cherry Falls where Jody (Brittany Murphy) goes to check out Lora Lee's old house.
Both girls find evidence of severe child abuse, and more generally, both are the targets of someone trying to punish the children of parents who wronged a classmate who was raped years earlier.
80.There are also serious Psycho vibes in this scene — specifically when Imogen finds a woman's desiccated corpse (presumably Angela's).
81.The "sins of the father" trope is probably the most significant theme of the show, and Imogen calls it out directly, when she explains to the girls' moms that "the sins of the mothers" are being "visited upon their daughters."
Generational trauma is huge in the horror genre, and Imogen, Tabby, Faran, Mouse, and Noa are paying for the crimes of their parents — just like the kids in Nightmare on Elm Street, both versions of The Fog, Cherry Falls, the 1999 House on Haunted Hill remake, and the Scream franchise (both the movies and TV series).
Episode 9
82.The title of the episode, "Dead & Buried," is the name of a zombie movie from 1981.
83.The Orpheum's Holiday Horror double feature is Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night.
84.Inside the theater, a poster for The Exorcist can be seen behind Wes.
85.Dr. Brundle, the coroner, is named after Jeff Goldblum's character, Dr. Seth Brundle, in David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly.
86.Mrs. Beasley mentions Kelly helping out Father Karras at Saint Maud, which is the same name of Rose Glass's 2019 horror film.
Episode 10
87.The title of the episode, "Final Girls," is an obvious nod to the final girl trope.
88.Angela Waters' relationship with her mother is nearly identical to that of Carrie and Mrs. White. Mrs. Waters even admonishes Angela for her clothing the way Mrs. White did.
89.Wes mentions going to Pittsburgh for Romero Fest. The late George A. Romero was responsible for numerous horror movies, most notably the Night of the Living Dead series.
90.The walls of Chip's room are covered in horror movie posters, including Death Game, John Hough and Vincent McEveety's The Watcher in the Woods, David Durston's I Drink Your Blood, Del Tenney's I Eat Your Skin, and Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead.
91.Chip has copies of a number of rape revenge-themed horror movies, including Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave and Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen's Five Across the Eyes.
92.Tabby suggests that Angela may have had a "secret deformed brother no one talks about like in People Under the Stairs."
The People Under the Stairs is a 1991 horror movie by Wes Craven.
93.The bully stations A has set up in the school, along with the assignments to torture Chip, the drug dealer, Steve, and Madame Giry, feel like something straight out of the Saw series.
94.Davie's body, laid out in front of her headstone for Imogen to find, is very similar to the scene in Halloween where Laurie finds Annie's body laid out in front of Judith Myers' headstone.
95.A's true identity is straight out of the original 1980 Prom Night.
In Paul Lynch's Prom Night, the killer is revealed to be Alex Hammond, who's avenging the death of his twin sister, Robin. Alex and Robin's father is the high school principal, just as Angela and Archie's is. The main difference is the father had nothing to do with the murders in Prom Night.
