The first time DNA was used to solve a crime was in 1986 in England.
Jamie, Pam, and Blake have the last name Hughes. This is a nod towards director John Hughes, who directed the movie दी ब्रेकफास्ट क्लब (1985), which starred Molly Ringwald, Pam's favorite actress.
The killer wears a mask depicting the face of a grinning, blonde-haired man, designed by makeup wizard Tony Gardner. Director Nahnatchka Khan explains that the mask "had to originate in the '80s, so you have to have that nostalgic vibe, but in our movie people still dress up like the killer in present-day, so I wanted it to feel a little bit relevant. We landed on the idea of a handsome man being terrifying. Tony Gardner [and] our design team started pulling '80s heartthrob references, like Kiefer Sutherland and Rob Lowe and Dolph Lundgren, and even Johnny Bravo, and then exaggerated it and made the teeth oversized. The idea [was] that the last thing you see is this beautiful smile as you're being killed."
Jamie mentions the movie बैक टू द फ़्यूचर (1985) several times. This movie includes several direct or inverted allusions to that movie. For example, in Back to the Future, Marty tries to get his future parents together, while in this movie, Jamie tries to keep her future parents apart. Also like Marty, Jamie needs the help of the younger version of the genius who built the time machine to help her fix it and get her back to the future.