Shout Out / Lollipop Chainsaw

Like most of Suda51's games and James Gunn's works, Lollipop Chainsaw is practically Reference Overdosed and needed its own subpage.

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• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Let's see... a blonde high school cheerleader who's the latest in a line of generational slayers of the undead? Nah, doesn't sound familiar.
  • Not to mention the main way of upgrading her is to engage in Sparkle Hunting. One wonders if that term was deliberately chosen to evoke images of Buffy going up against the new heartthrob version of vampires.
  • From the Valentine's Day Trailer: "You know how some girls have vampires for boyfriends?". While there would usually just be one true candidate, the scene has gotten rather crowded lately...
  • She slices a zombie in half from the groin up. This was one of You Know Who's more brutal... well, slayings.
  • Nick, on the other hand, makes one think of Xander in looks and personality. Except he's a jock instead of an unpopular nerd.
  • One of Juliet's sisters is named Cordelia, though that's as much a shout-out to Shakespeare.
  • Rosalind on the other hand rocks a wrecking ball to fight zombies, much like Xander did against Glory.
• Evil Dead:
  • Juliet's chainsaw and enemies of choice are an arguable example, since the chainsaw has become such a prevalent tool for zombie killing that it's hard to nail a source down if it's even intended.
  • Just the way the regular zombies talk is similar to the way the deadites speak.
  • One of the pre-order bonuses is an Ash Williams costume◊.
  • Juliet's dad also looks and speaks a lot like Bruce Campbell.
  • One of the rescued students mentions how Professor Campbell looks hot
  • The various times the word "Groovy" is used throughout the game
• Three of the settings are San Romero High School (home of the Knights), the Fulci Fun Center and the O'Bannon Farm.
  • if you look at the name of the school, it could also be read as Sans Romeo, or "without romeo"
• Still living, talking heads with some sort of a metal collar around their neck stumps... Futurama, anyone?
• A bunch of the outfits you get for beating the game are taken directly from anime and manga, some are in theme with monster/zombie hunting from the game itself.
  • Juliet with purple hair in a Sailor Fuku, and as a brunette with the same style — Saeko Busujima and Rei Miyamoto respectively, from Highschool of the Dead.
  • Juliet with white hair in a spandex suit — Shiro from Deadman Wonderland.
  • Juliet with blue hair in skimpy Ninja clothes, with a scarf — Chifusa Manyu from Manyu Hikencho.
  • Juliet with brown hair in a pink Magical Girl dress — Haruna from Is This A Zombie?.
• Juliet's sisters are Cordelia and Rosalind. Someone in that family is a Shakespeare buff. Or they might be a buff of... someone else.
  • To be fair, Cordelia in "Buffy" is explicitly modeled after Cordelia in "King Lear"; for one thing, they both have a habit of always telling the truth even when it's not a good idea. Cordelia Starling, on the other hand, has little to do with either character aside from being the most blunt and straightforward of the three sisters.
• One of Juliet's possible lines after a successful minigame is "If it bleeds, I can kill it!"
  • Or "You're already dead".
• Stage Four is set in San Romero's local youth center/arcade. As you progress through the level, you end up in a bunch of areas that are patterned after classic arcade games. In order, they're Pac-Man, Elevator Action, a weird combination of Pong and Breakout, and Crazy Climber.
• Swan is an older, evil teen that uses a demonic tome's magic powers to achieve his ends. Sound familiar?
  • That, and he's also a wangsty Emo Teen connected to the undead. The only way they could've made the Take That! at Twilight more obvious is if Swan were female.
  • He also looks like a cross between Billy the puppet from Saw (with his hair and makeup), Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas (skeletal-looking face w/ black pin-striped suit), and The Crow (especially during the 2D Art Shift of the flashback scene).
• The elevator coming down to pick up Morikawa's spirit after he dies with the cherubs orbiting it is reminiscent to Catherine.
• The achievement unlocked after killing Zed is "Zed's Dead, Baby, Zed's Dead"
• Upon dying, one of the things she can say is "Oops, I did it again." This counts as an Actor Allusion because Tara voiced Britney in episodes of Hidden Celebrity Webcam.
• A monster-hunting protagonist with a sidekick who is just a head? Seems familiar to a certain other Suda51 game.
• Mariska drops references to, among other things, The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
• "What's your favorite color, Nick?" - "Blue. No Green. I fucked up, it's yellow."
  • Another Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference: "Dude! Black Knight! You have no legs! Stop already!"
• Juliet's super-mode has her change a variety of different colors, and a special music plays ala Mario once he gets a star.
  • During the Fulci Fun Center stage:
  Nick: Alright, this is all too surreal. If a little dude in a red cap and blue overalls pops out at me I am seriously gonna vomit all over myself.
  • Also, Nick says this during the door and elevator section of the level. Aren't there any Mario games that feature doors and elevators as their main gameplay mechanic?
• Josey, the funk Zombie, says I'm JOSEY JAMES, Bitch!. One of his influences is Rick James, after all.
• In the Fulci Fun Center, one of the zombies says "I think I'm down with the sickness!"
• During the fight against Lewis:
  Nick: We're getting Punk'd, right? When's Ashton Kutcher gonna pop out?
• "Hey, it's dead Starsky & Hutch!"
• "Look who it is! Mary-Kate and Ashley!"
• During the fight against Vikke, he may start playing on his drum kit, which can prompt Nick to say "Who does he think he is, that one-armed dude from Def Leppard?"
• During the Cathedral stage, one zombie shouts "Die, die my darling!"
• Lewis Legend rides a flaming motorcycle.
• Several to Grasshopper themselves:
  • A zombie in the prologue says "Zombies not dead!" One of Juliet's taunts against Zed is "Punk IS dead!" Both are riffs on Grasshopper's "Punk's Not Dead" epigram.
    • It's also likely a reference to Crass's most well-known song, "Punk Is Dead".
  • A bomb zombie in the first stage grabs and explodes a student in a manner identical to a Heaven Smile.
• In the prologue, Juliet trains on wooden dummies based on the dummies from the Jackie Chan movie Shaolin Wooden Men.
• "Shut up, grass!" is a reference to writer James Gunn's movie Super.
• One of the phone messages from Rosalind has her mention that she was listening to MSI. This doubles as an in-joke, as the first boss, Zedd, is voiced by the band's lead singer.
• Juliet calls Zed a 'My Chemical Romance wannabe', and Nick promptly replied that he loves their song 'Teenagers'.