Ghost Hunter/Shout Out

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Film

  • The premise of the game is a shoutout to the Ghostbusters franchise.
    • As are some of the events. Capturing ghosts. Putting them in a containment vessel. Accidentally releasing the ghosts.
    • The howler is reminiscent of Slimer.
    • Particularly the 'Soul Whip' weapon is like the Ghostbusters proton packs.
    • In early screenshots Lazarus had a patch on his jacket which resembled the Ghostbusters logo.
    • The ghost Librarian in the game references (and expands on) the ghostly librarian in the original Ghostbusters movie.
  • Film Thir13en Ghosts (2001) - Hunting invisible poltergeist in a junkyard.
  • Hawksmoor grabs Anna Steele, Lazarus' partner, in the Absurdly Spacious Sewer beneath the high school, then pulls her straight up & out of sight. This is like the ambush scene in Aliens where a soldier suffers a similar fate.
    • Hawksmoor is invisible to Lazarus during this, as the Marines could not see the Aliens in the scene in the movie.
  • Movie Deliverance - Banjo music and threatening Rednecks.
    • And a town flooded by a dam.
  • Giant tube worms on an abandoned ship at sea? Deep Rising.
  • Abandoned/Haunted ship at sea? It's the Ghost Ship trope, but the Ghost Ship movie.
  • Movie Poltergeist - poltergeists
  • Psycho - Lady DeMontford was dead all along. Her corpse can be seen rocking in a rocking chair in the basement of the Evil DeMontford Mansion.
  • The cyborg form that Digital Richmond becomes following Lazarus' death is a clear homage to the RoboCop films - his chaingun and rocket-launcher are both based on RoboCop 2's weaponry and the mechanical noises of his legs and arms are all sampled from the films.
  • During the prison level, Lazarus Jones makes his way through an underground maze featuring steam-pipes that fire hot steam jets and giant spinning cogs. After completing the maze he emerges in a shower-room surrounded from above by gun-wielding ghost guards. This is very similar to the underwater Navy SEAL incursion sequence from the 1996 action film The Rock.
  • Movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Chainsaw wielding redneck wearing a crocodile head and a bloody butcher's apron.
  • Transformers (junked) vehicles assemble into a giant robot.
  • Movie Wes Craven's Shocker - Agglin electrified prisoner.
  • A giant alligator in a swamp. A reference to too many movies to list. Just check the Internet Movie database for movies with 'alligator' or 'crocodile' in the name. Since it ends up being wrestled with, there's a vague allusion to the Crocodile Dundee movies.

Music

  • Jerry Reed's Amos Moses. The one-armed swamp monster. "He could trap the biggest, meanest alligator, and only use one arm. Only got one cause the alligator bit it."


Literature

  • The ship's captain Kraken is turned into a giant multi-tentacled monstrosity that eats human souls. Cthulhu anyone?


Real Life

  • There's a bell with a crack like the Liberty Bell: Lazarus rings it to free ghosts of townspeople.
  • Agglin, and the Warden's rant about no one escaping, are obvious references to the three Real Life prisoners who escaped Alcatraz Prison, Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin
  • The Pulse gun that Lazarus uses throughout the game strongly resembles the Calico M960A rifle, complete with a helical magazine design.
  • Colonel Fortesque's head plays the Real Life game Hot/Cold with his headless body.


Video Games

  • The Cemetary area architecture, lighting and music are reminiscent of Ico.
    • Hawksmoor's castle has structure and color like the Queen's castle in Ico.
  • Tree roots growing through the DeMontford Mansion, like the tree under Decerto in the original Alone in the Dark. In the original Alone in the Dark, the tree was the source of the mansion's evil.
    • The DeMontford Mansion levels is one big shout-out to the original Alone in the Dark.
  • shout-out to SCEE Cambridge's all-time best work, too! Surely Colonel Fortesque is a reference to - or, in fact, a descendant of - Medievil's Sir Daniel Fortesque?
    • Sergeant (Sir Daniel) Fortesque's a sergeant In Name Only, similarly to how Colonel Fortesque's heroic exploits are really just historical embellishment.
    • Plus, when you defeat Captain Kraken, Colonel Fortesque admits that this is his first victory - Captain Fortesque never killed his opponent in MediEvil, instead falling during the first volley of arrows.
    • "The Fortesque family have been fighting man and boy for Old Blighty for over a thousand years. We've never let a little thing like death get in the way. Why, there's a Fortesque on every battlefield in the civilized world. Agincourt, dead. Waterloo, dead. Dunkirk, dead." - Colonel Fortesque, embellishing historically.
    • And they're both silly.
  • In the New School Theatre the poltergeists telekinetically raise chairs into the air and move them in geometric patterns. Psycho Mantis does the same thing in Metal Gear Solid. Here starting at 2:50.
  • There's a low-res poster of a bikini-model in the Janitor's office of the old highschool, much like the low-res "EXCITE! 1998" bikini model poster in the final level of the original Resident Evil.
  • When Digital Richmond's robot form unexpectedly falls through the floor, this is a Shout-Out to various other Survival Horror games that use this mechanic to advance the plot.
  • The little Redneck girl Lazarus has to escort out of the swamp bears more than a passing resemblance to Sherry, the little girl Claire has to escort in Resident Evil 2. The blonde hair particularly.
  • Some ghosts make a staticky background noise like the monster-detecting radio in the Silent Hill series. Great for knowing they're around and how close they are.
  • Silent Hill 2 - The transporting doors in the DeMontford Mansion are the same as the transporting doors in the decrepit Lake View Hotel in Silent Hill 2.
  • The Swamp Phantom, a giant naked, extremely well-muscled man, is a dead ringer for the Tyrant monsters in Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica, right down to the misshapen right hand.
    • To be clear, in the Resident Evil games the Tyrants have claw/clubs for a right hand. The Swamp Phantom is completely missing his right forearm and hand.
  • Giant crocodile in the swamp could be a Shout Out to the giant crocodile in Resident Evil 2.
  • Lazarus has to shoot a bell to advance at one point. Lara Croft had to do the same thing in Tomb Raider 2.
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