The Cobweb Trailer’s 5 Biggest Halloween (movie) Easter Eggs

A fall feel is definitely prevalent in the trailer for Cobweb, a new horror movie releasing in select theaters on July 21. So is Halloween, both the season and the original 1978 movie.

Although, it doesn’t appear Cobweb has anything to do with Michael Myers. Its tagline, however, hints at a common theme: family. “Sooner or later, family secrets creep out.” That could apply in the case of Halloween too. After all, he did technically “creep out” of the asylum to hunt down his sister, Laurie Strode.

And to the relief of arachnophobes, it also might not have much to do with spiders, even though the title sort of suggests otherwise. Maybe it’s more a reference to Shakespeare’s, “Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive.”

I’m not sure, so don’t hold me to that. I’m drawing that conclusion because there’s only one eight-legged insect in the trailer. However, it’s probably advisable to avoid this movie if spiders trigger you, just in case.

But something the trailer definitely has is Easter eggs, the most noticeable of which is from Halloween. Or am I reaching? Let me state my case.

The Halloween Easter Eggs in Cobweb

The House

The first glimpse of the house is around the 23-second mark. It’s a side view of a white wood frame house with a pumpkin patch dominating the yard.

That by itself didn’t exactly make me think of Halloween. (If there’d been a clothesline, the comparison would’ve been undeniable.) Later in the trailer (at the 1:01 mark), they show the front of the house. That reminded me much more of the Myers house.

It’s not an exact replica, mind you. The house in Halloween is two stories and what I’d call more “symmetrical,” meaning there are windows above and below on each side of the front door.

The house in Cobweb is one and a half stories, and the widows look nothing like the Myers house. But it is also white, made of a wooden exterior, and is dilapidated. Both also have porches, which share similar (but not exact) characteristics. (Like the shape of the detail where the columns meet the roof’s overhang. Albeit, the one on the Myers house is more intricate.)

The Pumpkins

Pumpkins appear throughout Halloween, but two memorable scenes have stuck with me over the years. One is the scene where Tommy’s leaving school, gets tripped by bullies, and his pumpkin splats on the sidewalk. And then there’s the carving scene when Laurie is babysitting Tommy on Halloween night.

There are pumpkins in a classroom in one of the scenes in the Cobweb trailer. There’s also a pumpkin carving scene. (“Carving” might be too gentle a term for what’s happening to the pumpkins in the trailer. It looks more like they’re getting slaughtered.)

The Knife

Of all the Halloween Easter eggs in the Cobweb trailer, this might be the most obvious. One of Michael Myers’ iconic weapons is a large butcher knife that he wields a certain way. (Which, now that I’m thinking of it, may be a Psycho Easter egg within Halloween.)

Anyway, around the 1:35 mark, there was a very distinctive butcher knife shadow scene that screamed Halloween to me.

The Boogeyman

The Stephen King The Boogeyman movie was just released, so it’s not exactly an Easter egg for that movie. However, I definitely thought of it while watching the Cobweb trailer. Particularly because the little boy in Cobweb essentially has a boogeyman haunting his bedroom. Except instead of under the bed, it’s in his walls.

The concept of a boogeyman is also prevalent in Halloween. That’s what Tommy Doyle, Laurie Strode, and many other Haddonfield residents considered “The Shape” (a.k.a. Michael Myers).

The Masks

This Easter egg may be a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. Michael Myers wore a couple of masks in Halloween. (The clown one when he was six, then the infamous blank face we all associate with him.)

None of the masks in the Cobweb trailer necessarily scream Halloween. (The Purge was the first movie to come to mind when I saw them, followed closely by The Strangers.)

But there are masks, and just like the one in Halloween, they’re creepy. In fact, they contribute to one of the trailer’s scariest scenes.

Cobweb Synopsis

Here’s the synopsis from Lionsgate:

Eight-year-old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tap, tap from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes that his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Anthony Starr) could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?

Cobweb Trailer

Check-In

Did any other horror movie Easter eggs jump out at you from the Cobweb trailer?