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Aired: Thursday October 16, 2008

Baddies: Shifter

Sources: tv.com, spoilerfix.com, supernatural.tv

arrow 1st Post: Episode Recap
arrow 2nd Post: Lore and Interesting Facts
arrow 3rd Post: Screen and Video Caps
arrow 4th Post: Quotes

Lore and Interesting Facts:

Sam and Dean's FBI aliases, Agent Angus and Agent Young, refer to AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young.

Dean: I have been rehymenated.
Sam: Please. Dean, maybe angels can pull you out of Hell but no one can do that.
Dean: Brother, I have been rehymenated. And the Dude does not abide.
("The Dude" is Jeffrey Lebowski, anti-hero of the 1998 Coen Brothers cult hit The Big Lebowski. "The Dude abides" is a popular catchphrase from the film.)

The Goethe Theatre, where Ed Brewer is a projectionist, refers to the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, author of, among other works, the two-part tragedy Faust, which recalls Dean's deal.

Dracula: It was beauty who killed the beast.
This is the last line spoken in the movie King Kong.

The Shapeshifter refers to Dean as Mr. (Jonathan) Harker, to Jamie as Mina, and when Sam arrives at the scene, he calls him Van Helsing, all characters from the most popular gothic novel of all times, Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the novel, Dracula persues Mina, the soon-to-be-bride of young Jonathan Harker, who meets vampire hunter Van Helsing.
The portrayal of the Dracula character in the episode highly refers in looks and gestures to famous horror movie actor Bela Lugosis' iconic portrayal of Dracula in the classic movie of the same name from 1931. Among other things, the cloak, Lugosis speech pattern, and the way he holds his cloak to disguise his face are gestures used by Lugosi in "Dracula" and "Albott & Costello Meet Frankenstein". This also might be a reference to the Ed Wood movie Plan 9 from Outer Space- (sometimes called "The Worst Movie Of All Times" and somewhat of a cult hit amongs fans.) - which should have starred Lugosi. But Lugosi died before the movie could be filmed, and Ed Wood hired an actor who barely looked like him. He intercut silent scenes from Lugosi with scenes filmed with the new actor, who had to raise his cloak to conceal his face and the fact that he wasn't Lugosi.

The episode heavily references other classic horror movies besides "Dracula": The Goethe Theatre plays "The Phantom of the Opera", and when we see Ed Brewer bent manically over his piano, this is a reference the 1925 movie. When we see Dean chained to a torture device in "Dracula"'s cellar, it's actually a reference to Frankenstein (1931). Other movies referenced are The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff (who also played Frankenstein's Monster in the aforementioned 1931 movie). (nn: Reference to the werewolf scene in the episode missing...)

Crazy Credits - The episode has an old-movie-like opening sequence with all the credits in a roll, as well as an "Intermission" screen with music, and a classical movie fade out (with a black circle closing in) at the end.

The whole episode was broadcast in black and white - in the beginning, Dean calls their current hunt a "black and white case".

When Sam approaches the stairs in the movie theater, a poster for the 1953 film House of Wax can be seen in the foreground. Jared Padalecki co-starred in the 2005 remake of this film.

*All facts are taken from supernaturalwiki.com*

Quotes:

Dean: Come on, man, it's like the good old days! An honest-to-goodness monster hunt! It's about time the Winchesters got back to tackling a straightforward, black-and-white case.

Jamie: No self-respecting bar wench lets herself get picked up by a customer on the first try.

Dracula: Everywhere I ran, everywhere I tried to hide, people found me, dragged me out, attacked me. Called me "freak," called me "monster." Then I found... them. The great monsters. In their movies, they were strong, they were feared. They were beautiful. And now I am like them. Commanding. Terrifying.
Jamie: Lonely.