It
Ryan Murphy is for including legion Easter eggs to some of horror ’s most iconic movies , especially inAmerican Horror Story : Freak Show . time of year 4 in his critically clap anthology serial publication takes place in Florida at Elsa Mars ’s ( Jessica Lange ) carnival of oddities and musical entertainment . It follows a close - pucker group of " monster " who enjoy the glare but fear the immorality that mill about within and outside of their company . Creator Ryan Murphy has utilized some of the most famed revulsion movies in the slasher and human oddities subgenres to create enamour plot line and characters - here’severy horror film Easter egginAmerican Horror Story : Freak Show .
AHS : Freak Showfeatures several series regulars including Sarah Paulson as the conjoined twins Bette and Dot Tattler , Evan Peters as Jimmy Darling , Frances Conroy as Gloria Mott , Denis O’Hare as Stanley , Finn Wittrock as Dandy Mott , Emma Roberts as Maggie Esmerelda , Angela Bassett as Desiree Dupree , and Kathy Bates as Ethel Darling . It focus primarily on Elsa Mars and the hatred her freaks confront from outsiders . As the story develops , Twisty the Clown face a new threatto their world by inspire Dandy Mott ’s slaying fling .
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Nearly every character feature inAHS : Freak Showis based on or now influenced by a popular revulsion movie . SinceAHS : Murder House , Murphy has include these Easter egg and references as a direction to construct on the series ' characters as well as pay court to some of the greatest movies in the music genre . Here ’s every repulsion movie Easter egg and reference inAHS : Freak Showas well as what they lay out .
Chained For Life
Sarah Paulson , who recently asterisk as Nurse Mildred Ratched inRyan Murphy ’s Netflix seriesRatched , portrays well and Dot Tattler . The conjoined Gemini had killed their female parent prior to Elsa recruiting them for her freak show . In the series , Bette dreams of becoming a Isaac M. Singer and an actress while Dot is cynical and dreams of brutally part herself from her sister . Their characters are based on the 1952 exploitation movieChained For Lifeabout Daisy and Violet Hilton . Throughout the series and the flick , the conjoined twin battle with the prospects of marriage , operative separation , and being exploited for the stage . chain For Lifeisn’t outright horrific , but the truth behind it is . The Hilton twins were overwork for being join similitude and their 1952 motion picture epitomized their experience with the cruelty of show business based on their difference .
American Psycho
Finn Wittrock , who starredalongside Paulson inRatchedas Edmond Tolleson , was the sadistic and disturbed Dandy Mott . After growing infatuated with the prospects of fame , he part stalk the junky show in hope of attaining some of its performers . He was inspired by one of horror ’s greatest psychopaths , Christian Pale ’s Patrick Bateman inAmerican Psycho . The most seeming Easter egg to the movie happens when Dandy is work on out and function into a long soliloquy . He also mirrors Patrick ’s narcissism as well as his refined wardrobe . The two get off with their crimes because of their attention to point and condition but their big similarities are entirely based in their narcissism and inability to recognize mightily from faulty .
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Freaks
Freaks(1932 ) is doubtlessly the biggest influence onAHS : Freak Show . The horror picture show unfreeze before the Production Code Administration ( PCA ) was established to guarantee that the correct coding was afford to features that include sex , violence , blood , and anything else viewed as overtly obscene . It is a remarkably horrific motion picture that let in a cast of actual people with forcible abnormalities . Most notably , Naomi Grossman ’s Pepper , first introduce inAHS : Asylum , was animate by the dummy masses inFreaks . Nearly every character inAHS : Freak Showwas inspired by someone in the 1932 pre - code horror movie .
IT
Twisty the Clown is a unmediated reference to Stephen King’sIT.Pennywise the Dancing Clownis one of the most famed clowns in the account of horror and , as such , was an obvious influence on Twisty . Before his jaw was entirely shoot off , he resembled Tim Curry ’s rendition in the 1990 miniseries . Rather than feeding off of fear , Twisty feeds off of joy , but his horrific appearance do children to campaign in the paired direction . He is a much lamentable picture of Stephen King ’s Hellenic brute .
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Zodiac
When audiences first meet Twisty the Clown , he is walking in a theatre of operations towards a young couple on a picnic date in Jupiter Farms , Florida . As he approach them , the scene is almost an precise mirroring of2007’sZodiacabout the ill-famed and anon. serial slayer . By drawing the connective between the two killers , Ryan Murphy create a mystique behind Twisty the Clown as a cryptic manslayer who will never actually get caught . It alludes to the very end of his tarradiddle arc , when Edward Mordrake take him to the Hades .
Halloween
While Twisty is stalking potential victims , he lounge from behind a bush . The scene is an exact written matter from John Carpenter’sHalloweenwhenLaurie Strode ( Jamie Lee Curtis)gets her first glimpse of Michael Myers . Both man are cloak killer but their law of similarity terminate there . It is probable that Murphy include this scene to make up homage to Carpenter’sHalloween . This is n’t the first sentence he has copied a scene from the motion picture either , asAHS : Murder Housereenacts the instant in the movie when Michael Myers is standing among several clothing lines .
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The Elephant Man
One of the most subtle Easter ball out of the entirety ofAHS : Freak Showis to David Lynch ’s 1980 movieThe Elephant Man . It is about the real - life Joseph Merrick who was put on presentation at nut shows across London for his physical abnormality . The Easter orchis occurs in episode 1 , " Monsters Among Us , " when Bette and Dot walk up to the chief tent for the first fourth dimension . John Morris ’s song " Carnival ( The Elephant ManTheme ) " play during this pivotal moment in club to touch that there will be glowering moments of exploitation ahead for the twins as well as everyone inside of the tent . It is one of the brief and most pernicious nod to one of the greatest work on human oddities but it perfectly establish what is to hail for the season . Ryan Murphy continues to bear witness that he is the master of include iconic horror picture show Easter eggs , especially with all of the insidious one that he utilize inAmerican Horror Story : Freak Show .
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