Major, major spoilers follow. You’ve been warned.
Everyone’s a suspect in Rian Johnson‘s murder mystery Knives Out (read our review), which powered its way to a $70M global opening.
In the film, a renowned crime novelist is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday and a detective is hired to investigate. Unlike most murder mysteries, the killer is revealed in the second act, which throws the audience for a loop and turns the entire investigation on its head.
The investigator eventually unravels the mystery and the dastardly plans of the author’s grandson, Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans). And while the audience has several red herrings thrown at them, Ransom’s intentions were always in plain sight.
In one big way, Johnson’s film appears to be a tribute to Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th. In the very first Friday the 13th, it’s revealed in the closing moments that it’s actually a revenge film, and Pamela Voorhees (the mother of a young boy who drowned in Crystal Lake due to the neglect of the counselors) is the killer.
Knives Out follows a similar arc in which the audience is led to believe that the caretaker, Marta, accidentally murdered the famed author, only to learn that the film is actually Ransom’s revenge story against his grandfather.
While the plot carries minor similarities, horror fans were being tipped off from the get-go. You see, Ransom enjoys wearing sweaters incredibly similar (from the stitching right down to the color) to those worn by Pamela Voorhees in Friday the 13th.
However, the biggest comparison comes in Knives Out’s closing moments when Ransom raises his arm over his head and attempts to murder Marta with a knife, a shot that’s a direct nod to the finale of Friday the 13th.
And if you wanted to question Johnson’s love of horror movies, it’s worth noting that Halloween‘s Jamie Lee Curtis was cast as Ransom’s mother in the film.
What do you all think?
