Wes Craven got the best revenge against his childhood bully.
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00:00Usually, in movies, when you're looking out for Easter eggs, you're looking for
00:03nice little winks and nods to other films. Directors love to put in little credits or
00:08references to other influential things or people from their lives, and I think that's
00:12quite nice. It's a nice thing to look out for. But Easter eggs aren't always done
00:16in good faith. They can also be used to poke fun at people that get on the wrong side of
00:21the filmmaker.
00:22So, I'm Amy from WhatCulture, and here are the 10 most spiteful horror movie Easter
00:27eggs.
00:2810.
00:29F*** You, Lucky Charms!
00:30In Leprechaun
00:31Leprechaun writer-director Mark Jones was inspired to create a horror movie centered
00:36around an evil, vengeful leprechaun by watching the iconic commercials for the beloved breakfast
00:40cereal Lucky Charms. Hilariously, the film also takes a number of cracks at Lucky Charms'
00:45expense, apparently as a result of the cereal's parent company, General Mills, refusing to
00:49partner with the movie in a mutually beneficial product placement opportunity.
00:53The first jab occurs when the leprechaun hungrily raids some cupboards and comes across a box
00:57of Lucky Clovers. But after eating just one mouthful, he spits them out, their taste apparently
01:02not quite to his liking. However, the more pointed, vitriolic Easter egg comes right
01:06at the film's end, when young Alex uses his slingshot to defeat the leprechaun, but
01:11not before legendarily shouting,
01:13F*** you, Lucky Charms!
01:15You can't really blame a breakfast cereal conglomerate for not wanting to get involved
01:19with a daft, low-budget horror movie. And ultimately, the film is all the better for
01:23including these thinly-veiled jabs.
01:259.
01:26Taking a bite out of the competition
01:28Jaws 2
01:29Early on in Jaws 2, an orca's brutalized carcass washes up on Amity Island Beach, which
01:34Chief Martin Brody believes is the result of a shark attack. Whilst at face value this
01:38may seem like a typical plot point for a shark movie, it was actually a sly thumbing of the
01:42nose at the film Orca the Killer Whale, a shameless Jaws rip-off that was released just
01:47two years after the original Jaws. And surprisingly, it failed to find the same success.
01:53Not content to merely imitate Jaws, though, Orca the Killer Whale also arrogantly lampooned
01:57Spielberg's film by featuring a sequence in which an orca slaughtered a great white
02:01shark, in effect implying that orca's titular creature was a major upgrade from Jaws'
02:06own great white. And so, as great whites don't generally attack orcas in the wild, it's
02:11clear that Jaws 2 was doing this on purpose. They were dumping an orca's chewed-up corpse
02:15on the beach as a clapback to Universal. And as moviegoers, we have to applaud them for
02:19it.
02:208. Dead Things Don't Run
02:23Diary of the Dead
02:24Whilst it's absolutely fair to say that George A. Romero's better filmmaking days
02:28were long behind him when he made 2007's found-footage zombie movie Diary of the Dead,
02:33the director nevertheless decided to make fun of the tendency for the undead to move
02:36fast in modern zombie movies.
02:39In one of the film's opening scenes, filmmaker Jason is shooting a horror film and tells
02:43his undead cast member that he's moving too fast, exclaiming,
02:46"'Dead things don't run.' If you run that fast, your ankles are gonna snap off."
02:50Jason insists that the actor shamble instead, and there are numerous other sly references
02:55to the running zombies popularized not only by the remakes of Romero's own Dawn of the
02:59Dead and Day of the Dead, but also films like 28 Days Later.
03:02If there was somehow any doubt about Romero's intent here, he confirmed as much in an interview
03:07with Vulture. He said, quote,
03:09"'I took a big swipe at fast zombies in this film. There's a running gag in the
03:13movie that dead things don't move fast. Partially it's a matter of taste. In the
03:17original Halloween, Michael Myers never ran. He just sort of calmly walked across the lawn
03:21or across the room. To me, he says, that's scarier, this inexorable thing coming at you
03:26and you can't figure out how to stop it. Aside from that, I do have rules in my head
03:30of what's logical and what's not, and I don't think zombies can run. Their ankles
03:34would snap." End quote.
03:37People might find it a little bit pretentious, but I guess logically he is right.
03:417. No thanks whatsoever. Scream
03:45In a rare case of an Easter egg being concealed in the film's closing credits, Wes Craven's
03:49masterful Scream features a very peculiar note near the end of the credits of the usual
03:54The Filmmakers Wish to Thank dedications. A notice reads,
03:57"'No thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board,' and
04:02this is due to the board meddling in production and forcing planned location shoots to be
04:06changed just shortly before filming. Originally, the production had received verbal permission
04:10from Santa Rosa High School's principal to film Scream on its grounds, but once the
04:14School District Governing Board heard about it, they stonewalled filming altogether.
04:18With pressure subsequently mounting from locals none too pleased about a slasher film being
04:23shot in their backyard, Craven and company had no choice but to up sticks and move shooting
04:27to the nearby Sonoma Community Center. But not content to simply just let the matter
04:32rest, Craven immortalized the Governing Board's refusal to play ball by disparaging them in
04:36the end credits of this movie. On balance of circumstances, Wes won.
04:416. Trolling Twilight Fans, Fright Night 2011
04:442011's surprisingly good remake of the 1985 cult classic vampire film, Fright Night released
04:50in the midst of the Twilight phenomenon, and being as self-aware comedy horror as it was,
04:55it gleefully took the opportunity to throw some shade at the very uncool vampire franchise.
05:01Early on in the film, there's a straight-up joke about Twilight when the protagonist Charlie
05:05tells his pal Ed, "'You read too much Twilight,' a suggestion which greatly offends Ed. But
05:10there is a far more subtle allusion to one of the first Twilight movie's more infamous
05:14scenes about halfway through Fright Night, when vampire Jerry rolls an apple off his
05:18kitchen worktop and catches it whilst Charlie is sneaking around the house. Though Jerry
05:23also has a fondness for apples in the original Fright Night, this is actually a specific
05:27nod to an oft-ridiculed scene from Twilight. In the scene in question, Bella drops her
05:31apple in the school cafeteria, only for her vampiric crush Edward to catch it with his
05:36foot and bounce it back up into his hands. All jokes aside, if someone managed to run
05:40across the cafeteria in time to catch her apple and bounce it back up, you can't say
05:44you wouldn't be impressed.
05:465. The Edited-For-TV Jacket
05:48Return of the Living Dead
05:50Cult classic horror-comedy Return of the Living Dead certainly holds nothing back in the gore,
05:55nudity, and profanity department, enough that you have to wonder why any TV network would
06:00even bother making an edited-for-content version. Yet, it's extremely bizarrely common in the
06:05U.S. for R-rated movies to get sanitized TV edits, typically either using alternate
06:10takes shot specifically for that purpose, or more hilariously, getting sound-alikes
06:14to re-dub any offending dialogue. In the case of Return of the Living Dead, one of the more
06:18prominent edits involved changing the lettering on the back of Freddy's jacket. In the theatrical
06:23version of the film, the text reads, "'F**k you'", but these scenes were re-shot for
06:27TV with a message that could be enjoyed by all the family. Seemingly not thrilled about
06:31the idea of having to shoot a cleaned-up alternate version, though. The filmmakers
06:35had a second jacket made with the phrase, "'television version' written on the back,
06:39poking fun at the very idea of such a graphically violent and sexual film being edited for TV.
06:454. Stephen King's Endings Always Suck
06:48It Chapter Two
06:49There's a running gag in It Chapter Two that people tell author-protagonist Bill that
06:54the ending to his book sucked. Which, to anyone familiar with Stephen King's own novels,
06:58is sure to feel loaded with meaning. King, despite his enormous success as a writer,
07:03has frequently been criticized for the unsatisfying endings to his stories, including the ending
07:08to It itself. This recurring joke is a frustrated jab at King's tendency to lose his way in
07:14the final stretch. Though, to be completely fair on both the movie and King, the author
07:18seems to take it in his stride, as he even shows up for a brief cameo in the movie where
07:22he himself mocks Bill for the book's ending. He is a good sport for taking part, but I
07:27do wonder if he felt a slight jab in his heart thinking about all the fans that hated
07:31the ends of his books.
07:333. Throwing Shade at Jaws
07:36The Giant Spider Invasion
07:38You'd think that any movie called The Giant Spider Invasion wouldn't have the gall,
07:42the guts, or the gumption to throw anything at Jaws, never mind obvious shade. But if
07:47nothing else, it shows that, really, filmmakers have the audacity.
07:51Released just four months after Jaws, The Giant Spider Invasion was a sci-fi horror
07:54movie about, yep, you guessed it, gigantic spiders terrorizing a Wisconsin town. Probably
08:00the most exciting thing to ever happen in Wisconsin. Originally, the film's spiders
08:04were actually going to be more modestly sized, at about 10 feet tall each. But when the producers
08:09got wind of Steven Spielberg's jaws going into production, they insisted that the spiders
08:13would have to be bigger in order to compete at the box office.
08:16A tongue-in-cheek reference to this is made in the movie's own climax, when Sheriff
08:20Jones tells another character that the spiders make the shark from Jaws look like a goldfish.
08:24To which the other character agrees. Trying to compete with Jaws is one thing, but actively
08:29trying to denigrate it in the movie itself? Are you kidding me? Unsurprisingly, it did
08:33little harm to Jaws' reputation, and likely only reminded audiences that they could be
08:38out there watching a much better film.
08:402. Wes Craven named Freddy Krueger after his childhood bully, A Nightmare on Elm Street
08:46A Nightmare on Elm Street's iconic antagonist, Freddy Krueger, is basically drawn from a
08:50grab bag of filmmaker Wes Craven's most traumatic formative experiences. In fact,
08:56even the antagonist's name was inspired by a real-life terror.
09:00As much as the name Freddy Krueger might sound made-up and impossible to be a real person's
09:04name by now, you have to keep in mind that that's just because of how familiar we are
09:08with it in its context. It is actually, truly, the name of a bully who tormented Craven in
09:13his childhood, albeit that kid went by Fred, dropping the Y.
09:16Given that Krueger himself is a bully and a tormentor, it's certainly a fitting designation
09:21for someone who evidently brought Craven so much misery in his younger years. In fact,
09:25this isn't even the only one of Craven's films where this guy is referenced. In The
09:28Last House on the Left, released a decade later, the rapist and serial killer played
09:33by David A. Hess is named Krug. If nothing else, this just serves to disprove the whole
09:37thing of, oh, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
09:42Any kind of playground bullying can stick with you for years, for the rest of your life
09:45in fact. And clearly, this one guy had such an impact on Craven that he chose to immortalize
09:50him as the bad guy forever.
09:521. Retconning Laurie's Past
09:54Halloween 2018
09:562018's Halloween manages the mostly graceful feat of serving as a direct sequel to the
10:01original 1978 movie, all whilst kicking all previous sequels to the curb. Yet, its best
10:06bit of table-clearing is a throwaway line of dialogue that's easily missed if you're
10:10not totally paying attention. In one of the film's establishing scenes, Allison is talking
10:14to her friends about her grandmother Laurie, and one of them asks her about the killer
10:18Michael Myers being Laurie's brother. Allison quickly replies that this isn't true, saying,
10:23quote,
10:24"...that's just a bit that some people made up. To make them feel better, I think."
10:27End quote.
10:28This single, ten-second dialogue exchange does away with one of the most divisive aspects
10:33of 1981's Halloween II, which reveals Michael and Laurie to be siblings, a fact that went
10:37on to define the original run of sequels and the bad way they went.
10:42In a matter of just seconds, Halloween 2018 wipes that ill-advised plot twist off the
10:46map, and returns to the much scarier notion of Michael simply being an unstoppable merchant
10:51of death motivated only by the need to kill. By getting this retcon out of the way so quickly,
10:56director David Gordon Green clearly didn't want fans to think about it too much, or at
11:01all. It was certainly a worthwhile retcon, but even in those precious few seconds, you
11:05can feel Green's disgust for that fateful plot twist.
11:08And with that, we've reached the end of this list of the 10 Most Spiteful Horror Movie
11:12Easter Eggs.
11:13I'm sure there's more petty, spiteful people out there who've gone on to make movies,
11:17so let us know in the comments below what ones you would've included on this list.
11:21And remember to check out WhatCulture.com for more lists and articles like this every
11:24single day.
11:25As always, I've been Amy from WhatCulture, and I'll catch you next time.