Guillermo del Toro honors Stanley Kubrick in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019). We have two allusions to The Shining (1980), with a R.E.D. Room and the Pale Lady, seen frequently roaming the end of corridors.

Fantastic arcane mnemonic using actress Mckenna Grace as an Art of Memory device (qua Occult Casting). The child actress appeared as Judy Warren in Annabelle Comes Homes (2019, left), battling evil ghosts and demons. Specifically, she combats Mathus, a Great Earl of Hell, and the thirty-eighth demon of The Lesser Key of Solomon. Mathus, of course, possesses the Annabelle doll, wreaking havoc wherever it goes. Ergo, Grace has been cast as Egon Spengler’s granddaughter, Phoebe (right), in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), who battles Gozer and a host of evil spirits.

The Conjuring 2’s director, James Wan, has acknowledged a Kubrick influence upon his filmmaking, especially the ultimate haunted house movie, The Shining (1980). At the beginning of The Conjuring 2 (2016), during the séance at the Amityville house (112 Ocean Ave), a Stanley Kubrick look-alike is seated to the right of Lorraine (Vera Farmiga, left) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson, center).

Blink and you’ll miss it. Towards the end, when the Ecto Containment System is shut down and the ghosts escape, keep and eye out for the billboard for Stay-Puft Marshmallows. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is unmissable, heralding the form of the Destructor.

Check out the name of the mining company, Shandor Mining Co, named after the cult of Gozer leader, Ivo Shandor. Shandor was contracted as the architect for an apartment building at 550 Central Park West. He secretly designed the building to act as an antenna for pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence (Ghostbusters 1984 canon). In turn, Ivo Shandor is named after Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997), founder of the Church of Satan (est. 1966).
