Rick and Morty: Night Family's Horror Influences Explained
"Night Family" Title
![rod-serling-the-night-gallery.jpg rod-serling-the-night-gallery.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2022/09/26/483e5951-bdb1-4a4b-a183-10b80510db6c/rod-serling-the-night-gallery.jpg?auto=webp&width=2048&height=1354&crop=1.513:1,smart)
Rick and Morty has had many odes to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone over the years, but in titling Season 6 Episode 4 "Night Family" it seems like the show is paying homage to a different work of Serling: The Night Gallery.
Running from 1969-1973, Night Gallery was Serling dipping more into horror rather sci-fi storytelling. Every week, viewers got a new horror story each week, based on a painting hanging the gallery of an old museum. Rick and Morty may have done a lot of fans the favor of turning them onto it, after this.
Opening Quote By T.S. Eliot
"When you're alone in the middle of the night and you wake in a sweat and a hell of a fright
When you're alone in the middle of the bed and you wake like someone hit you on the head
You've had a cream of a nightmare dream and you've got the hoo-ha's coming to you."
This quote opens Rick and Morty's "Night Family" is a from poet T.S. Eliot's "Fragment of an Agon" a part of his unfinished verse drama "Sweeney Agonistes: Fragment of an Aristophanic Melodrama. It's unclear why exactly this exact work – other than the suggestive wording – but "Sweeney Agonistes" is itself a reference to Milton's "Samson Agonistes", with both works examining themes of violence, revenge, tortured souls, and even foreshadowy elements like female betrayal.
John Carpenter Music
![the-thing-movie-john-carpenter-1982-1258182.jpg the-thing-movie-john-carpenter-1982-1258182.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2021/03/18/7fb0f51c-c575-4774-a608-68e4615d49ca/the-thing-movie-john-carpenter-1982-1258182.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=628&crop=1.911:1,smart)
John Carpenter isn't just the pioneering filmmaker behind classics like The Thing and Halloween – he's also a pioneering composer, whose sonic composition went on to define a lot of Hollywood horror that came after. Rick and Morty's soundtrack for "Night Family" certainly pays a lot of homage to Carpenter's creepy sound, as the showrunners confirm in their episode breakdown.
Spooky Lights
![rick-and-morty-season-6-horror-night-family.jpg rick-and-morty-season-6-horror-night-family.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2022/09/26/0c95598f-71ea-4e98-9e7e-b060408ece62/rick-and-morty-season-6-horror-night-family.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=628&crop=1.911:1,smart)
Rick and Morty's "Night Family" ep pays homage to any number of signature horror genre tricks, from spooky underligthing to glowing eyes in a dark room. The show's creators legitimately made their own short horror movie to properly create the atmosphere the wanted for the episode – and judging by the fan reactions, it worked!
As Above, So Below
![as-above-so-below.jpg as-above-so-below.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2022/09/26/ce3d6e2c-bda2-4e69-8c6d-0556134823df/as-above-so-below.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=627&crop=1.914:1,smart)
This 2014 found-footage horror film was by one of the genre's solid talents, John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine, Devil), gets directly name-dropped by Rick and Morty, disguised as the sign off for their podcast about having killer abs.
Daymonoids
![demonoid-movie-1981.jpg demonoid-movie-1981.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2022/09/26/5b76bd69-b635-4fae-acf8-995d54416b8a/demonoid-movie-1981.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=628&crop=1.911:1,smart)
Another reference to some obscure horror of the past. The night family refers to the Sanchez family as "Daymonoids," which is a spin on the word "Demonoid." Demonoid: Messenger of Death is a 1981 Mexican horror film, in which explorers find a demonic hand that possesses those it touches, causing them to do horrific things.
Night US
![us-comicbook-movie-review-screen-capture-1163788.png us-comicbook-movie-review-screen-capture-1163788.png](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2021/04/25/ba72abb3-f133-4af0-9f98-c0ccc7f6ca9e/us-comicbook-movie-review-screen-capture-1163788.png?auto=webp&width=1920&height=1080&crop=1.778:1,smart)
Jordan Peele's horror movie US was all about demented doppelgangers, and Rick and Morty's "Night Family" episode clearly borrows from that movie's premise, tone, and staples – down to the creepy raspy voices on the Night Family.
Doomed Ending
![rick-and-morty-night-family-ending-explained-season-6-episode-4.jpg rick-and-morty-night-family-ending-explained-season-6-episode-4.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2022/09/26/52241f43-2ea4-41e8-9d35-ff0985a2ae2d/rick-and-morty-night-family-ending-explained-season-6-episode-4.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=628&crop=1.911:1,smart)
Rick and Morty ends "Night Family" with a twisted resolution that sees the Night Family win. It's the sort of abysmal ending that any number of famous horror movies have gone with – although Rick and Morty pulls the twist of hilariously undoing it, once Night Family finds out what mundane life in the day is really like.