Five Easter eggs you probably missed in ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’
When Rian Johnson said Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery was his most personal case yet, he meant it in every which way. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the third Knives Out film on Netflix was actually planted with quite a few blink-and-you-miss Easter eggs.
For those still out of the loop, Wake Up Dead Man sees the return of Benoit Blanc as the Southern sleuth, taking him to a small parish in upstate New York, thanks to a locked-door mystery that could even give him a run for his money.
Right at the centre of the whodunit is the chilling case of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks’ murder, which has seemingly left the community surrounding the church dumbfounded.
While the Netflix movie isn’t short of religious and literary references, here are five Easter eggs you’ve probably missed in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
Five Easter eggs from Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
The title inspiration
The idea of naming his third Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man isn’t something that dawned upon Rian Johnson out of the blue. The reference comes from the U2 song on the ‘Pop’ album, which Johnson calls rather underrated. “I love that album. It’s a really good song,” he says to Tudum. But the reason why the track stuck more in his head is because of a line in the old folk song that says, “Go Down, Old Hannah.” Hannah is the son who says, “I said, wake up, old dead man,” in one of the verses.
The version Johnson originally heard was sung by Pete Seeger, which he believes was learned from Lead Belley.
Renning Hot!
Jeremy Renner’s hot sauce, Renning Hot!, has become a recurring Easter egg in Johnson’s Knives Out films, which was first seen in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and returns in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. In the second movie, it almost had detective Benoit Blanc bawling his eyes out. But this time, Johnson cut Daniel Craig some slack with only the sauce’s appearance at the pizza restaurant, II Diavolo, on one of the shelves.
“Not sure if you can actually see it, but do you need to see it? You know it’s there. You can feel it,” the director jokes.
Magician Ricky Jay’s poster
Another recurring Easter egg that has become a tradition with the Knives Out movies is magician and magic historian Ricky Jay’s references, with whom Johnson was “good friends.” In the first Knives Out movie, Ricky Jay’s picture was on the fridge “as if he was the original bearded guy” in the tiny security room with Emmet Walsh.
In Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Ricky Jay’s poster from his 52 assistants show appears on the wall of II Diavolo, the pizza restaurant.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt cameo
Johnson also has a soft corner for inculcating Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s cameo in all of his movies since he had been a friend from his first movie. Even if he cannot get him on-screen all the time, he ensures that his voice is included, which was evident with his sneaking in of Gordon-Levitt as the radio announcer for the baseball game that catches Jud Duplenticy’s attention in one of the movie’s scenes.
“I’m a big baseball fan. Part of the delight for me was also getting to write commentary for baseball,” he added.
John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man
The literary influence of John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man is predominant throughout Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Speaking of his choice, Johnson expressed his love for the book, especially the cover, which is believed to be from the original British edition. However, he also admits to cheating a little since a paperback version of the book was never really made.
Johnson had the prop department do it, and the reason is because he thought the “creepy face on the front is so haunting.” The director also thinks The Hollow Man is a great book to begin with if you’ve watched the movie, as the notion of an impossible crime is more prominently evoked through this. As you might remember Benoit Blanc exclaiming, upon the discovery of the church community members’ reading list, “My God, this is practically a syllabus for how to commit this crime.”