Halloween: Every Franchise Easter Egg And Reference Explained

Much has been made of the fact that the new Halloween film effectively writes every film except for the original out of continuity. In an attempt to get back to the roots of Carpenter's original film, the creative team behind the new film decided to completely ditch the intervening forty years of continuity in the interest of simply losing the baggage.

But anyone claiming that the filmmakers didn't have affection for those original sequels isn't paying attention. The new film is positively loaded with references to prior films in the series, including the ones that it is actively writing out of continuity.

From smaller things like recreating exact pieces of set design or the reappearances of certain props, to larger things like rooting whole sequences in similarly-minded set-ups from prior films, Halloween 2018 is a love letter to the franchise as a whole.

Let's go through and recount all the ways the new film makes reference to earlier films, to the original and beyond.

There are dozens of references to the original film peppered all throughout this new one.

Some are obvious narrative references, like when Laurie speaks about the night in 1978 or when a voice recording of Dr. Loomis can be heard, but the far more interesting references are the ones in the form of the film itself. The new film frequently sets up direct parallels to moments from the original film, often for the purpose of subverting the payoffs.

Moments like Laurie falling off the second-story balcony at the end, only to then disappear from the front lawn when Michael looks back are direct inversions of the original film, where it's Michael who falls and disappears.

There's also some deeper cuts like some of the kills being exact replications of frames the original film, the actual creation and production of a 'I Wish I Had You All Alone' song (a jingle Jamie Lee and John Carpenter made up on the set of the original), or the subtle inclusion of the children's chorus of chanting that opens the original film.

Green's new film is filled to the brim with love and affection for that original film, and it absolutely shows.