Sabrina Carpenter is back with another music video folks can’t stop talking about, and this time, she’s joined by “Wednesday” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” star Jenna Ortega. Fittingly, the video is full of horror, camp and cult classic movie references — and we’ve put together a handy list to guide you through them.
1. “Death Becomes Her”
This is the most overt reference and it runs throughout the video, as “Taste” has a few references to Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep’s 1992 dark comedy. Most obviously, the core conceit of two unkillable women fighting to the would-be death over one man, as well as the iconic costuming.
There’s also the whole shotgun sequence, which heavily tips its hat to “Death Becomes Her,” right down to the hole left in Carpenter’s torso — a parallel to Goldie Hawn’s unforgettable “I have a hole in my stomach” scene — and the shot peering right through it.
As for that mid-music video makeout that’s got everyone buzzing, “Death Become Her” also has a pretty pointed exchange:
“If she’s not dead … you tell her to come down here, walk right up to me and kiss me on the–”
“Kiss you on the what?”
Well, dear reader, now we know.
2. “Ginger Snaps”
One of the deeper cuts in the video, Carpenter falls right onto a white picket fence and flips Ortega the bird — a pretty overt reference to the delightful 2000 coming-of-age werewolf movie “Ginger Snaps.”
3. “Kill Bill”
Ortega does her best Elle Driver cosplay midway through the video, equipped with the red-cross eye patch. The look was first donned by Daryl Hannah in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 1.” The defibrillator kill could also be a reference to “Scream 4” — especially considering Ortega has become a “Scream” franchise mainstay — however, the tone and aesthetic are quite different.
And that’s not all when it comes to Quentin Tarantino. The fonts seen in “Taste” appear to be inspired by the fonts from the opening credits of Tarantino’s 1994 crime classic “Pulp Fiction.”
4. “The Addams Family Values”
There are a lot of iconic blondes getting referenced here, and it would be a crime to leave out Debbie Jelinsky, Joan Cusack’s boa-wearing character from “The Addams Family.” Ortega has, of course, become “Addams Family” royalty in her own right with Netflix’s smash hit “Wednesday.”
5. “Psycho”
One of cinema’s first horror movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” — yet another iconic moment in cinematic blondes — gets an extended nod with the video’s reinvented shower scene.
6. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
You can’t just include a bloody chainsaw murder and call it a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” reference — it’s the lighting that really sells this one. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic is known for its use of the oppressive summer sun and some signature lens flares.
7. “Halloween Ends”
If you’re wondering who plays the boyfriend in the “Taste” music video, there’s a fun answer to that — in a cheeky bit of casting, it’s Rohan Campbell, the actor who played slasher neophyte and world’s most toxic boyfriend Corey Cunningham in “Halloween Ends.”
Bonus: “Please, Please, Please”
It’s not a movie reference, but “Taste” also includes a reference just for fans of Carpenter’s music videos. At the very start, a teddy bear is seen wearing the same kiss-marked duct tape Barry Keoghan dons at the end of the “Please, Please, Please” music video.
