This week, to celebrate the release of The Simpsons Movie on Friday, we’re bringing you the 20 best movie references from The Simpsons (that’s four a day, clever clogs!). Here’s numbers five to eight. Click here to watch the trailer.

5. THE SHINING

Another Halloween special, Treehouse Of Horror V, parodies the movie based on Stephen King’s bestseller. Homer is hired as caretaker for a haunted hotel, and when deprived of his two greatest loves – TV and beer – he goes berserk and tries to kill his family, echoing Jack Nicholson’s murderous rampage in
The Shining.

Classic quote: (Mr Burns): “This house has quite a long and colourful history. It was built on an Indian burial ground and was the setting for satanic rituals, witch burnings and five John Denver Christmas specials.”

6. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

Another classic Jack Nicholson film is parodied in So It’s Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show. Homer is in hospital after a prank in which Bart shakes up a can of Duff beer with an industrial paint mixer, putting Homer in a coma. Barney’s attempt to put Homer out of his misery by suffocating him, and Homer’s subsequent escape from the hospital, are straight out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

7. BASIC INSTINCT

In the second part of the classic two-parter Who Shot Mr Burns?, Groundskeeper Willie is arrested for the attempted murder of Mr Burns. The interrogation is played exactly like the notorious scene from Basic Instinct – except that no one wants a peek up Willie’s kilt!

8. WESTWORLD

In the 1994 episode Itchy & Scratch Land, the robots at the Itchy & Scratchy theme park break their programming and run amok on a murderous rampage – just like the cowboy robots in Westworld, the Yul Brynner film based on the Michael Crichton novel. Crichton’s other theme-park-gone-wrong bestseller, Jurassic Park, is referenced in the same episode, as Professor Frink attempts to warn the park’s owners that the robots will go out of control due to
chaos theory.

Classic quote: (Professor Frink): “Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and kicking and biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving…”

Tune in to D+CFilm tomorrow for numbers nine to… oh, we’re lost already.

Posted by Thin White Duke

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