Guillermo Del Toro was behind one this year’s Treehouse of Horror show intro, complete with couch gag, and man, it’s just packed with horror movie references! Look under the cut for my attempt at listing them all!
Zombies, take your pick. Pacific Rim. Lard Lad is a reference to a previous Treehouse of Horror. The Quimby cyclops is a reference to The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. The Birds. Bart’s chalkboard writing references The Shining, as does the appearence of Stephen King. Hellboy. Blade 2. Godzilla’s skeleton can be seen buried in the ground (trademark spine plates). Pan’s Labyrinth. The Cronos device can be seen in front of Maggie on the grocery store conveyer belt. The big egg sac on the ceiling of the grocery store could be a reference to The Mist. The praying mantises (Marge and Maggie’s rival baby) might be a reference to Meet the Applegates, a movie about giant mantises who assume human forms (it might also be a reference to Del Toro’s movie Mimic, about giant roaches that can disguise themselves as humans). Five different iterations of the Phantom of the Opera, including the Lon Chaney version and the Phantom of the Paradise. Picture of tentacled Maggie is another reference to a previous Treehouse of Horror. Cthulhu. Horror authors: H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson. Each of them is next to one of their creations, in order: Cthulhu, the Raven, the Illustrated Man, and one of the vampires from I Am Legend. Universal monsters: Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Wolfman, the Mummy, the Metaluna Mutant (This Island Earth), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Bride of Frankenstein, and the Invisible Man. The Car. Okay, this is a big one – I see the robot from Lost in Space, Mr. Hyde, skeletons from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Hans Moleman painting Hitchcock’s silhouette, Robot Monster, the Fly, Nosferatu, some of the freaks from Freaks, Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still, the Mummy and the Invisible Man again, 1930s horror actor Rondo Hatton, and the Grim Reaper. There were a few aliens in there that I couldn’t identify. Alice in Wonderland. Futurama. Pan’s Labyrinth again.