Editorials
Let’s Have a “Stranger Things” Easter Egg Hunt!
That Netflix’s Stranger Things” is inspired by 80’s horror is well documented and there have been many words spilled on these pages. Daniel Kurland wrote a great piece about this while John Squires warned those responsible for the upcoming IT remake that they’ve got some big shoes to fill. But what we haven’t done yet is have a good old fashioned Easter egg hunt to decipher the most obvious, and perhaps the not so obvious, horror references The Duffer Brothers laced through the series.
There’s no way I can itemize everything, so I’m relying on commentators to fill in the gaps.
That Title Treatment
While the show’s title treatment hints at the font favored by John Carpenter, I think it’s safe to say it’s referencing the one that graced pretty much every 80’s era Stephen King novel. Many people were immediately reminded of King’s “Needful Things,” even though that novel was published in the 90’s.
That Score
Composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s synth heavy score channels everything from John Carpenter’s Halloween to Risky Business. But while it is evocative of the era it also feels modern a testament to their talents.
Jonathan Barkan did the lord’s work by tracking down S U R V I V E, the band that features show composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.
Poltergeist
In episode one of the series, Winona Ryder’s Joyce surprises her son Will with tickets to Tobe Hooper’s paranormal classic. Not long after she’ll find herself communicating through walls just like in the 1982 film.
Jaws
Spielberg looms large over Stranger Things, but we’ll start with Jaws. The famous shark thriller is both overtly (there’s a poster) and inadvertently referenced in the film, but most interesting is how the show’s monster is described as a shark in how it is drawn to the smell of blood.
The Thing
A poster for John Carpenter’s seminal arctic horror film hangs on the wall of the basement where the kids spend a lot of their time. The film also appears on the television in a quick scene.
The Evil Dead
Another poster we see hanging in Will’s older brother, Jonathan Byer’s, room is for Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. At one point, in a heated fight, his estranged father points to the poster and tells him to take it down as it’s “inappropriate”. You have to wonder how many kids were told the same thing in the early 80’s.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Every time the outline of a ghostly figure stretches out of a wall I immediately think of that scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street when Freddy emerges from the ceiling. Of course, the effect has been used many times since, most notably in Peter Jackson’s underrated horror comedy The Frighteners.
Firestarter
From “Carrie” to “Firestarter”, Stephen King loves Telepathy. But the added flavour of secret experiments and a team of scientists chasing down an escaped subject make Eleven’s story feel very Firestarter– y to me.
The Gate
When Nancy Wheeler (played by Natalia Dyer) discovers a gateway to the Upside Down at the base of a tree it’s hard not to think about the 1987 film The Gate. In that film, a group of suburban kids discover a gateway to another world when a tree is removed from their backyard. When monsters begin to emerge it is up to them to save the day.
Under the Skin
The design of Eleven’s world when she goes into the sensory deprivation tank is so similar to Under the Skin that I can’t imagine this was not intentional. Even down to the rippling of a watery floor when she walks through the black world, Johnathan Glazer’s film is evoked.
Alien
Besides a few visual nods like the one pictured above that is reminiscent of the crew of the Nostromo exploring the derelict ship on LV426, there are smaller Easter eggs in the series. The name of the officer that discovers Will’s body for example is O’Bannon, no doubt named after Dan O’Bannon, the writer of the original Alien.
Stand By Me
Late in the series, our group of young heroes journey along a stretch of track to find the source of what’s interfering with their compass. I don’t know about you, but ever since Stand By Me, tracks and kids signify that film and I have no doubt that was the intention here.
Altered States
Ken Russell’s weirdo 1980 horror, Altered States, features sensory deprivation and William Hurt’s Eddie Jessup under the influence of psychotropic drugs. If you haven’t seen it, it’s one trippy horror outing.
Cujo
There’s a quick moment when s state trooper can be seen reading a copy of a Stephen King book. What makes it an obvious Cujo reference is when Chief Hopper says, “I love that book, it’s a nasty mutt.” Clearly a reference to the titular dog.
Witchboard
Okay, admittedly this last one’s a stretch. Ouija boards are a staple of horror cinema in general, but Witchboard was a particularly popular series in the 80’s. When Winona Ryder communicates with the spirit of her missing son by scrawling what is essentially a giant ouija board on the wall, I think it’s safe to say this popular horror trope is being evoked.
What did I miss?!
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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