Fans love to pick apart their favorite movies and franchises. There are threads upon threads of fan theories, some of them interesting, and some of them completely insane—but still interesting in some regard. Still, there are connections between films and franchises that generally go unnoticed. Some of them are surprisingly subtle story details and some of them are just nods between the filmmakers themselves.
Either way, it can be fun to watch these movies for the hundredth time and eventually start seeing things you never noticed before. The references we’ll be looking at on this list definitely fall into that category.
Also See: Horror Tie-In Toys We Can’t Believe Actually Got Made
While some of them have probably been noticed by hardcore fans, most of them are not likely to be picked up on the first time around.
The College Kids in Creepshow 2 are From the Same University as in Creepshow
One of the most subtle references on this list, we have an actual connection between the Stephen King and George Romero collaborative anthologies, Creepshow 1 & 2. The students in the Creepshow 2 segment “The Raft” are actually from the same university we saw in “The Crate” in the original, which is evidenced by the Horlicks University attire worn by some of the characters.
Halloween’s Lindsey Wallace is Probably in Halloween 4
Rachel in Halloween 4 is described to be around the same age as Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace in the original Halloween as she notes that she was also babysat by Jamie’s mother, Laurie Strode. When she picks up Jamie from school, she’s with her friend, Lindsey. Alan McElroy’s script makes it clear that this is the same character as the original. While her full name is not given, we can still count this as Lindsey, considering that if they wanted to replace her with another character outright, they would have likely changed her name.
Stu Makes an Appearance in Scream 2
Well, maybe Stu may not make a return appearance, but Matthew Lillard definitely has a blink and you’ll miss it cameo, walking by the background during the party scene. It’s debatable whether this is Stu having somehow survived his death, but the original plan for Scream 3 was centered on Stu returning to launch a wide scale attack on Sidney, so you never know.
Jason Goes to Hell Takes Jason Takes Manhattan Into Account
Jason Goes to Hell gets a lot of flack for not referencing any of the previous entries in the series. The filmmakers even expressed their need to free themselves from being bogged down by the franchise’s continuity. Yet Jason Goes to Hell is a part of that same timeline and the references are at least there in the visuals if not in the script itself. At the end of Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason was melted by toxic waste and the effects artists of KNB were instructed to take that into account when creating Jason’s look for the new film, which is why Jason has such an interesting, melted appearance in Jason Goes to Hell.
The Hitchhiker is Technically in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
While the Hitchhiker is replaced with a new family member, Chop Top—whose absence in the original may be explained by the fact that he could still have been in Vietnam during those events—the bloodthirsty brother of Leatherface and the Cook does still have a brief appearance in the sequel. He appears as a corpse being used as a puppet by Chop-Top and Leatherface, wearing his headphones from the original, but is blown apart with a hand grenade along with the family business.
