Killer Frequency is a first-person horror and simulator gametaking place in the 1980sand putting you in charge of a late-night radio show based in the fictional town of Gallows Creek. As radio DJ Forrest Nash, you’re in for quite a night as a serial killer claims potential victims that are calling in for your help.
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There are puzzles you’ll solve when saving callers andplenty of tunes to find and play on your show. But naturally, in a game oozing with 1980s nostalgia, you’ll also discover plenty of horror movie references and other homages to its slasher inspirations.
9Creepshow
Horror film references will often come in the form of items such as posters, magazines, and other fake movie tapes. Among those is a magazine titled “The Creepy Hour” lying next to a key piece of evidence you’ll need later in the game. The imagery of the skull and macabre red blood next to the word “Creepy” and seeing the word “Scare” attached feel reminiscent of the Creepshow artwork.
Creepshow was released in 1982 and was a collaboration between zombie horror icon George A. Romero and Stephen King, with Romero directing and King writing. It’s an anthology of many different horror segments, and the “Hour” in the game version’s title feels like a call to storytime, which is what the movie is about.The stories were also made into a comic book, and that’s probably why it appears in booklet form in the game.
8Malignant
The game’s opening tutorial ends on an interesting note where the Whistling Man assaults you in full mask and costume. The killer’s mask may evoke the one Josh wore inUntil Dawn, but the rest of the attire can’t help but feel like the full-black outfit Gabriel wore in Malignant. The long black trench coat, black hair, black pants, and even the belt around the waist are an almost perfect imitation.
Malignant is directed by modern horror extraordinaire James Wan, who also created the Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring, and Annabelle series. This is a unique, unconventional movie that combines the genres of traditional slasher horror, mystery, and fast-paced gory action with an incredibly shocking unforeseeable twist.
7Evil Dead
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Immediately the poster of Sam Raimi’s debut 1981 horror filmThe Evil Deadcomes to mind, which has a similar hand of the woman reaching out to the sky and a demonic arm rising from the ground grabbing at the woman’s neck. This horror series has spawned multiple sequels, including Evil Dead Rise and the television series Ash vs Evil Dead, and even Evil Dead: The Game.
6Friday The 13th
There’s bound to be an iconic slasher film reference hidden somewhere around the radio station, and it’s actually for the sequel to the originalFriday the 13th. The Friday the 13th Part 2 DVD art features a black silhouette holding a shiny silver axe dripping with blood. And on a workbench near a TV as well as on a table near the entrance to the station, there’s a VHS tape of a movie called “Axe Me Again” with that same axe amidst a black background for its cover.
Even more compelling is the red VHS tape next to it called “Axe 3: Final Decapitation,” meaning the one with the same bloody axe design must be the second part of the Axe trilogy. Part 2 was the film that saw Jason Voorhees take over from his mother, and he does have quite a few decapitations under his belt.
5The Shining
The carpet pattern of the Overlook Hotel immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining often has a cameo in numerous video games and film media, including its appearanceas an easter egg in Back 4 Blood. Team17 decided to bring back the design in a specific section of the radio station, though not in the exact coloring.
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The Shining is perhaps one of Stephen King’s most influential books next to The Stand and IT, following a family isolated and taking care of a haunted hotel where the ghosts are taking control of father Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, to terrorize his wife and son. Danny is often seen playing and biking along this carpet, and you’re able to walk on it around the front desk area.
4Smile
The wall behind the DJ station, or your central command center for your callers, is filled with all kinds of labeled cassette tape recordings. The names are random and silly, but there’s one that pops out. It has a red case with yellow tape across reading: “Smile” and a hand-drawn smiley face to go along with it.
This is seemingly a clever nod to the 2022 movie of the same name that proved a hugely successful horror debut and a low-budget box office hit. The premise of Smile centers around Dr. Rose Cotter as she faces an entity that preys on trauma and transfers from person to person by making its host commit suicide in front of others.
3Scream
An obvious reference is aimed at Wes Craven’s Scream slasher film series that began in 1996. Forrest Nash’s station is called “The Scream,” and in the original version is displayed in white lettering like the signature title on all the movies. You’ll also see a “Scream” sticker with a red knife in a bathroom stall, and Ghostface’s blade of choice also seems like a match to the one the Whistling Man killer wields on the game cover.
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Scream began a new era of slasher films followed by others like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Jeepers Creepers, Urban Legend, and spoofs like Scary Movie. The first four were directed by the late creator Wes Craven. But now the series has gone in a different direction with new characters like Sam and Tara Carpenter while still having Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers return.
2Christine
Yet another homage to a notable Stephen King story appears in Killer Frequency. Christine was published in 1983 and was made into a movie by John Carpenter within the same year. King taps into the supernatural differently in Christine, as the titular name belongs to a 1958 red Plymouth Fury vehicle with a drive for violence.
An early puzzle in the game will ask you to search for an instructional magazine on how to hotwire cars. The first place you’ll check is an employee’s office desklittered with stuff about cars. You’ll even spot an ad on the wall for a Gallows Creek automotive repair shop called “Christine’s,” which hopefully is free of the odd killer car.
1The Fog
Another John Carpenter reference lies in the premise of this horror game itself. Killer Frequency puts you into the shoes of a radio DJ working through a nightmarish night and trying to save the people of Gallows Creek. A 1980 Carpenter horror film titled The Fog sees Adrienne Barbeau,also in Fallout 76, as radio DJ Stevie Wayne facing a deadly threat from ghoulish spirits.
As the name suggests, an eerie fog cascades the town of Antonio Bay and brings ghosts that seek vengeance for their wrongful death in a shipwreck. While you may be dealing with a serial killer hunting their next victim over a radio, Stevie communicates via radio while her town is under siege by seafaring ghosts with weapons.
