Gemma Gracewood

Near the end of Spirited Away, as the young heroine, Chihiro, prepares to leave the bathhouse that employs her to try to save the life of the boy she loves, her mentor asks the boiler man, Kamaji, “What’s going on here?” A fitting question, one you may ask yourself at least once while watching this tale full of folkloric spirits, transforming creatures, and otherworldly environments. Kamaji’s response is simple, yet pointed, “Something you wouldn’t recognize.

Everybody remembers where they were when they watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. You might have been in a theater, sheepishly raising your hand as they called for any virgins in the room. It could have been at a party, throwing rice and water merrily in the air until it stuck on the ceiling, on Halloween dressed to the nines in fishnets and scrubs and trench coats, or through a worn-out VHS, two lipsticked red lips still staring back at you with nothing else in the frame.

According to an on-screen title, the opening sequence of Peter Jackson’s third feature, 1992 zombie splatterfest Braindead (released in the US as Dead Alive), takes place on Skull Island, which film fans of many stripes would have recognized as the canonical home of a certain giant gorilla. While such Easter eggs have long since become de rigueur in big genre movies, this endearing shout-out was an early indicator of Jackson’s lifelong obsession with King Kong: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B.