Nightmare Alley: Guillermo del Toro included a Mimic Easter egg

Making the 1997 movie Mimic (watch it HERE) was not a pleasant experience for director Guillermo del Toro, and you can learn all about the issues he had to deal with during the production of that film in the episode of our WTF Happened to This Horror Movie video series that’s embedded below. Despite how troubled Mimic was, del Toro still chose to include an Easter egg reference to it in his latest movie, the noir thriller Nightmare Alley.

The Mimic nod came about because Mimic art director Tamara Deverell was the production designer on Nightmare Alley. She explained to Slash Film,

The ‘Jesus Saves’ neon (sign) that we built was actually a little bit of an Easter egg. Years ago, I worked with Guillermo on a movie called Mimic. We built that same cross, that same ‘Jesus Saves,’ very similar. It played where this priest is running away from the creature monster and falls with this big neon sign in the background. When Guillermo said, ‘Let’s do that sign again,’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m designing and building that sign again.’ It was fun to do it again. 

On the night they were shooting (with the sign, for Nightmare Alley) it actually fritzed. They had rain towers and a lot of rain and it fritzed and I was getting calls from the set, having already opened the set and gone home for the night, ‘The sign’s not working!’ I’m like, “Well I’m not an electrician. I don’t know!” So apparently it went on the fritz and they shot the scene without it. They said, ‘Okay, the VFX will shoot it and they’ll fix it after.’ And then as soon as they finished shooting the scene, one of the electricians took the plug and fiddled with it and it went on. The whole thing was working the whole time. So I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this happened.’ We all felt really bad. 

Then I noticed in the film last night, he left it off. He let it fritz and go off and I thought, ‘Oh my God, that is so brilliant because, really, it shows sort of the demise of religion and the demise of morality, bringing this dead guy down and Jesus saves, but who’s Jesus saving?” Really, you’re asking that question and [Bradley Cooper’s character] Stan is beyond saving at that point. It’s one of those moments in the film where you go, ‘Morally, this guy, he’s going down a deep dark alley now.'”

Based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham (which was previously turned into a movie in 1947), Nightmare Alley is set in “a world of carnival hustlers and con men, telling the story of a mentalist who teams with a psychologist in order to swindle the rich.” Here’s the official synopsis:

When charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle endears himself to clairvoyant Zeena and her has-been mentalist husband Pete at a traveling carnival, he crafts a golden ticket to success, using this newly acquired knowledge to grift the wealthy elite of 1940s New York society. With the virtuous Molly loyally by his side, Stanton plots to con a dangerous tycoon with the aid of a mysterious psychiatrist who might be his most formidable opponent yet.

The film stars Bradley Cooper as Stanton Carlisle, Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Toni Collette as Zeena, David Strathairn as Pete, Rooney Mara as Molly, and Richard Jenkins as the “dangerous tycoon”. Also in the cast are Willem Dafoe, Mary Steenburgen, Ron Perlman, Holt McCallany, Clifton Collins Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Beaver, and David Hewlett. 

Copies of Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley can be purchased at THIS LINK. Del Toro wrote the adaptation with Kim Morgan. The film has been rated R for “strong/bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.”