The Most Chilling Easter Eggs Found In Horror Movies

Easter eggs can add a whole new layer to a movie, inviting fans to comb through every frame to find hidden details that fly under the radar of the average viewer. Although the phrase "Easter egg" obviously refers to traditional holiday Easter egg hunts, there is some debate about how the term first got applied to hidden references in media. 

Video games have their own cornerstone example in the Atari game Adventure, where a clever programmer hid his name in a secret room (a secret that would go on to inspire Ready Player One). Sometimes they're even literal — if you watch carefully in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, you'll find a few Easter eggs left over from a real Easter egg hunt held by the cast and crew. Not every egg was found, so a few made it into the film!

Horror is an extremely ripe genre for Easter eggs — after all, it's undeniably eerie to discover something hiding in plain sight within a good scary story. Sometimes, horror Easter eggs are just fun little references, but they can sometimes add to the film and make it even spookier than you originally realized. Here are a few of the most chilling Easter eggs ever discovered in your favorite horror movies.

1973's The Exorcist is considered by many to be one of the finest horror films ever made — to this day, it is still held up as a timeless horror masterpiece. Though some of the scares and effects may not have the punch they once did (particularly after decades of parody and imitation), The Exorcist does an excellent job of deeply unsettling the viewer. Director William Friedkin added all sorts of subliminal sounds and images to the final cut of the film to help keep the audience ill at ease.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Friedkin discussed layering sounds deep into the film's mix, like heavy machinery and the buzzing of bees, because they trigger our unconscious fight-or-flight mechanisms. He also inserted incredibly quick cuts of a frightening face into a few scenes — too fast for the naked eye, but enough for your brain registered that something is wrong.

Exorcist fansite Captain Howdy has a breakdown of all the places you can see the face in the various cuts of the film. It looks... less impressive in a still screencap, but it's easy to see how it would subconsciously freak people out.

The original Saw film shocked audiences and the box office alike — the gritty indie horror flick made back almost almost 100 times its $1.2 million budget and launched a franchise that's still going strong today. The reveal of the Jigsaw killer's identity was also quite a shocker, but eagle-eyed fans (and characters in the movie) could have figured it out much sooner if they had noticed a blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail.

Fairly early in the film, a man is brought in to the hospital where Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) works. We have no idea, at this point, that cancer patient John Kramer is Jigsaw. But as Gordon checks in on Kramer, savvy viewers might notice something strange sitting on the patient's bedside table in a sketchbook: a drawing of the infamous "reverse bear trap" that one of the victims barely manages to escape from!

Sure, it doesn't make a ton of sense; after all, it seems likely that someone in the room with the patient would say something like "Hey, what's this?" about the death trap drawing in the patient's lap. That said, it's a fun little footnote that shows just how long John was planning his crimes.

There are so many scares hidden in plain sight in Hereditary. Ari Aster's debut film is a slow-burning two hours that explodes over the last 20 minutes or so, and all sorts of tiny little details add up to the gut-punching finale. It's a movie where you just might be able to tie every single item in every single shot to some bigger meaning, but one that particularly stands out is how the cult of Paimon is always lurking close at hand throughout the entire ordeal.

Several of the bystanders throughout the film, including most of the guests at the funeral, show up again at the film's conclusion — Annie (Toni Collette) says she barely recognizes anyone because she doesn't know her mother's cult friends. In one scene, Annie's son is smoking in his room. Watch closely, and you'll see someone outside exhale when he does, so the smoke obscures the person's breathing.

Then there's this lovely shot, where a quick cut from day to night shows a ring of nude cultists outside the house. It stays onscreen for just a brief moment, but the cult of Paimon seems like they're always nearby.

It may be a series instead of a film, but with director Mike Flanagan at the helm for all ten episodes, Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House will likely keep you enthralled for one long, scary roller coaster of a binge. And if you've already seen it once, it might be worth a rewatch, because every episode hides ghosts throughout, showing just how completely they have infiltrated and influenced the Crain family's life. 

In fact, the very first shot of the show has a ghost lurking by the staircase as the camera sweeps through Hill House. As the story unfolds, it's clear that the home's ghosts are more important to the story than the family they terrorize. They hide under the stairs. They lurk on the other side of windows. The creepiest one of all hides under the piano. Gah! They're everywhere. No wonder all these kids grew up psychologically shattered.

If you want to go back and try to spot them, Vulture has a pretty thorough list of the ones that have been spotted so far. Maybe there are others still lurking?