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"\n-=-=-=-\nEveryone still alive?\n\nIt’s hard to believe that *American Horror Story*’s sixth season is already coming to a close—yet on Wednesday night, this chapter will bow with its tenth and final installment. It’s been a long, bloody journey, and it looks like only one person has made it out alive (so far). But for all of the season’s twists and turns, *Roanoke* has also been one of **Ryan Murphy’s** most homage-heavy *A.H.S.* volumes yet.\n\nThe references have ranged from thematic to blatant—as in, literal writing on the wall—and they span several horror subgenres, from old slasher movies and Japanese horror to mid-aughts-style torture porn. Did you manage to spot them all? If not, we might be able to help:\n\n## **YUPPIES IN A HAUNTED HOUSE**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9f364154776b0bab1b]\n\nO.K., this one is pretty obvious. There are plenty of stories about innocents moving into a haunted house, but *Roanoke* seemed most closely related to *The Amityville Horror.* In that grim tale, newlyweds take residence in a big, beautiful white house—with only mild concern over the fact that an entire family was once slaughtered there. In both cases, money was a key deciding factor—though Matt and Shelby, to their credit, had no idea that they were moving into a haunted house, whereas *Amityville*’s Lutz family did.\n\nAesthetically, the similarities are undeniable. And as *American Horror Story* Season 6 unfolds, even more parallels reveal themselves.\n\n## **THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9b364154776b0bab15]\n\nAnother *Amityville* influence? The imaginary friend who turns out to be a ghost. Flora’s not-so-imaginary friend, Priscilla, most closely mimics Jody in *Amityville Horror.* Guard your kids closely, parents. And maybe always be suspicious of their imaginary friends.\n\nBut potentially malevolent ghost kids are not the only things that kids in horror movies have to worry about. There’s also the ever-present risk of abduction.\n\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9eca6f7ee00ec28e1f]\n\nIn this case, it looks like *A.H.S.* borrowed from another horror favorite, *Poltergeist.* In both films, kids got abducted by lonely spirits—but even more strikingly, the mediums tasked with bringing them back were petite, quirky individuals. In *Poltergeist,* we got Tangine—the serene-voiced woman who got to proudly mug for a camera and proclaim in the end that “[this house is clean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGcTcDcrx9s).” Her *A.H.S* stand-in, Cricket, had plenty of one-liners (“Tell me, young man, have you ever heard of the term ‘gay for pay’?”) but did not enjoy such a pleasant fate. (For those who don’t remember: he was disemboweled.)\n\n## **FOUND-FOOTAGE INFLUENCES FOR *DAYS***\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9c364154776b0bab17]\n\nAnother pretty obvious inspiration? *The Blair Witch Project.* Just like the 1999 film that kickstarted an entire subgenre, *Roanoke*’s latter half was all shaky-cam footage and crying into the camera. It’s worth noting that in some ways, the series more closely mimicked *Paranormal Activity*—for instance, the use of stationary cameras throughout the house to provide some respite from quivery, hand-held visuals. But those creepy stick figures are unmistakable.\n\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc977d9aa14f739fa386]\n\nThere’s also the use of title cards—a favorite in the found-footage genre. This technique—title cards that imply what the audience is about to see as “true”—was also used in older films like *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre* and *The Amityville Horror,* but with *Blair Witch*, the technique—along with an early viral marketing campaign—were put to astoundingly good use, convincing many viewers at the time that what they were watching was real. To many first-time viewers back then, the footage of those crying students wasn’t just “based” on a true story—it *was* the true story.\n\n## **THE SHINING**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccca07d9aa14f739fa38e]\n\nAnother film that had an extensive influence on this season was **Stanley Kubrick’s** classic adaptation of *The Shining.* Unfortunately, we did not get a moment when the whole house flooded with blood, but we *did* get two very obvious homages. First, there was the literal writing on the wall: red letters spelling out “M-U-R-D-E-R.” In the show, these were courtesy of two (dead) evil nurses—who were, interestingly enough, [based on a true story](http://www.thewrap.com/american-horror-story-the-true-story-behind-the-killer-nurses/) themselves. In *The Shining,* the Torrances’ young son, Jack, chants “red rum” in a raspy growl as he writes “R-E-D-R-U-M” on the bathroom door. His mother realizes it’s the backwards spelling of “murder” just moments before **Jack Nicholson’s** iconic “Here’s Johnny” moment.\n\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9a364154776b0bab13]\n\nAnd speaking of that moment: Did you spot the visual homage tucked away in *A.H.S.*? It was this season’s second visual reference to the film—brief, but unmistakable.\n\n## **HILLBILLY CANNIBALS**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9fca6f7ee00ec28e21]\n\nThen, there’s the charming Polk family—cannibalistic hillbillies who pay off the cops to look the other way as they grow weed and feast on unfortunate interlopers. There are plenty of horror films that feature rural folk with a thirst for blood—perhaps most notably *Deliverance, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,* and *The Hills Have Eyes.* But the most notable ties here seem to be to the latter two. Smush together the family dynamic seen at the family table in *Texas Chain Saw* with the cannibalistic tendencies of Papa Jupiter and his clan in *The Hills Have Eyes,* and bingo\\! You’ve got the Polks.\n\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc98364154776b0bab11]\n\nWe should also note that the Polks’ methods—chopping and shaving meat off their victims while they’re still alive, then eating the meat in front of them—also closely resemble one particularly gruesome moment from *Hostel II.* And that slurping sound their matriarch makes while explaining their eating habits? Well. We all remember where that came from, right?\n\n\n\n[#video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/UvlBS5CmsNA](640x360)\n\n## **HERE, PIGGY, PIG, PIG**\nStill shrouded in mystery, even after this season, the *A.H.S.* universe’s Piggy Man—who first showed up in Season 1—could be seen as a reference to *Motel Hell* or the *Saw* franchise.\n\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccca0ca6f7ee00ec28e23]\n\nUpon seeing the pig mask, many fans recognized the prop from the more recent world of *Saw,* in which Jigsaw and his acolytes used a similar one as their [disguise of choice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThwleP2uU0c) while kidnapping victims for their “games.” But the Piggy Man actually more closely resembles a gambit from the end of the 1980 film *Motel Hell.* Unlike *Saw*’s accomplices, the pig’s head worn by the Piggy Man appears to be a real pig’s head. In *Motel Hell,* Sheriff Bruce finds himself fighting his own brother, Vincent, who is armed with a chain saw and wearing an actual pig’s head over his own. It quickly turns into a [battle between dueling chain saws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZyhfkpsGGI).\n\n## **IN-UNIVERSE REFERENCES**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9a7d9aa14f739fa38a]\n\nThere were plenty of ties to the *A.H.S.* universe itself in this season, as Ryan Murphy has already teased that every installment of the series will eventually tie together. We saw Dandy Mott’s ancestor, Edward Philippe Mott, in the re-enactment, and learned that his family line supposedly ended with him. We also know that **Sarah Paulson’s** Season 2 hero, Lana Winters, [will be making an appearance](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/american-horror-story-season-6-finale-preview-episode-10-people-vs-oj-lana-winters) in the finale. And then there are the ties to *Coven*—Cricket being from New Orleans, and the fact that the Roanoke witch is actually the [“Original Supreme.”](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/american-horror-story-twist-lady-gaga-original-supreme)\n\nBut perhaps the most fascinating reference to previous seasons was a simple visual. Like previous seasons, *Roanoke* included a grand, prominently featured staircase—which eventually served as the scenic locale for a major character’s death. In Season 1, **Dylan McDermott’s** Ben Harmon was hanged above his staircase. In Season 2, Sister Mary Eunice fell to her death from high up on Briarcliff’s spiral staircase—which Sister Jude called “her stairway to heaven.” This season, Monet also fell to her death from the Roanoke house’s spiral staircase—before getting impaled at the bottom. Put together, the shot sequences are strikingly similar.\n\n## **OH, MY ACHING FEET**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9c7d9aa14f739fa38c]\n\nWhat’s a horror romp without some good, old-fashioned foot hobbling? Looks like *Misery* found its way into the *A.H.S.* universe, too, as the Polk matriarch decided to maim Shelby in the exact same way that Annie Wilkes (played in *Misery* by *A.H.S.* favorite **Kathy Bates,** who won an Oscar for her trouble) injured her favorite author, Paul Sheldon, to keep him bedridden.\n\n## **THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582ccc9c364154776b0bab19]\n\nOne small but fascinating nod to horror movies past came in the first episode of *Roanoke*, when Shelby and Matt recall the events that first prompted them to leave Los Angeles. After a group’s gang ritual landed Matt in the hospital, Shelby lost her baby—as signified in the re-enactment by a stream of blood dripping down her right leg. It’s reminiscent of the opening of *Carrie,* in which we find our titular heroine showering. The camera sates the male gaze, roaming Carrie’s body and settling on her legs—just in time for a healthy stream of menstrual blood to wash over her right thigh. Murphy has [referenced *Carrie* before](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/carrie-horror-influence-40th-anniversary), so it’s not a stretch to imagine that this was another small nod.\n\n## **CREEPY CRAWLIES**\n\n\n[#image: /photos/582cd118364154776b0bab23]\n\nAnd last but not least, we should have known that the minute Murphy introduced an Asian family this season, there would be at least one reference to the Asian horror canon. The Chens might have been from Taiwan, but the influence behind their ghostly, creepy-crawly daughters, comes straight out of Japanese horror—specifically, *Ju-On: The Grudge.* (The film later got a popular American remake, *The Grudge,* from its original director, **Takashi Shimizu.**) Anyone who’s seen either movie remembers Kayako—whose husband Takeo murdered her and their son after finding out she was in love with another man. You know, it’s that iconic scene where she comes crawling down the stairs.\n\nThen again, the Chen daughters are also much more agile than Kayako was in either iteration of *The Grudge.* We should probably also thank *The Exorcist* for inspiring the exact configuration of her bizarre backwards spider-walk.\n\n\n\n[#gallery: /galleries/53c30df5b5b5518a0db2ff96]\n\n"
<https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/american-horror-story-season-6-the-shining-blair-witch-amityville-horror>