A cultural allusion is a reference to something well-known in culture that works because you’re expected to recognize the original.
Let's see if your spooky allusions are in order 😈
🎩 Something wicked this way comes
Shakespeare, Macbeth: one of the witches senses Macbeth approaching and announces that "something wicked" is coming. Much later, Ray Bradbury borrowed the line for the title of his 1962 dark fantasy novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, and since then it’s been referenced and remixed in pop culture ad nauseam.
🐦⬛️ Once upon a midnight dreary...
The opening of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (1845): arguably one of the most recognizable spooky openings in English 👻 The original continues “while I pondered, weak and weary”...
🌧 It was a dark and stormy night...
Famously opens Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford. However, he didn't invent it — versions of it had already been appearing in literature for decades. Over time, tho, it became the ultimate cliched opening to a scary story!
📞 The call is coming from inside the house
It comes from an older urban legend about a babysitter receiving threatening calls, only for the police to discover that the caller is already inside the house 💀 Then When a Stranger Calls (1979) turned it into one of horror cinema’s most famous twists. So no, Scream (1996) didn't invent the trope 😅 Nowadays the phrase is used to mean that the problem (or hypocrisy 👀) comes from within your own group, institution or even yourself, rather than from outside.
🪰 Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Popularized by David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986), where it became the film’s famous tagline/catchphrase. Today it’s often used jokingly, e.g. Be productive. Be very productive.
Any other seasonal cultural allusions that spring to mind?
#chillvocab