Mike Flanagan's Carrie Has An Evil Dead Easter Egg Most Fans Missed

In Mike Flanagan's new TV series adaptation of "Carrie," Carrie's mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) has to take a job as a grocery clerk to make ends meet. Margaret hates the job, mostly because she hates the customers, but also because the co-worker training her is younger than she is. 

The name of the store where Margaret works will elicit a knowing smirk from fans of Sam Raimi's third "Evil Dead" movie, 1993's "Army of Darkness." A quick glance at Margaret's work vest reveals that she works at S-Mart. Her vest also bears the slogan "Shop smart, shop S-Mart." 

S-Mart happens to be the employer of Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) in "Army of Darkness." He works in the housewares department. Campbell repeats the "Shop smart, shop S-Mart" slogan early in the film, while flashing back to more placid times in his life, and then says it again to a crowd of medieval villagers after the character has been whisked backward in time to circa AD 1300. 

In terms of tone, "Carrie" and "Army of Darkness" couldn't be more different. "Carrie" is painful and somber — a meditation on bullying, religious zealotry, and parental abuse. Whether that tone fully works is another matter; /Film's Chris Evangelista pointed out in his review that "Carrie" excels in its calmer, sweeter moments.

"Army of Darkness," meanwhile, is a living cartoon, a slapstick horror movie that climaxes with Bruce Campbell fighting a bunch of rubber skeletons. It's so silly and non-horrific that we once wrote about how it's a perfect "gateway" horror film for genre neophytes. Mike Flanagan is clearly a horror fan (he has adapted multiple Stephen King novels and works in the genre), so it wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that he might be a fan of Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness." And even if he isn't, the S-Mart reference is a cute little wink to "Evil Dead" fans.

Of course, some viewers will immediately begin speculating that "Carrie" and "Army of Darkness" take place in the same universe. "Army of Darkness" also shares a continuity with Raimi's films "The Evil Dead," "Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn," and the Starz TV series "Ash vs. Evil Dead," all of which are lousy with demons and Deadites. Well, I use "continuity" loosely; the stories don't quiiiite match up between the "Evil Dead" movies. 

But the question arises: Is the universe of "Carrie" also populated by demons? Was Margaret White right in her deep-cut evangelical faith? That certainly brings up some sticky moral quandaries. 

The eighth and final episode of the first season of "Carrie" aired on October 7, 2026, and it took several departures from Stephen King's original novel on which it is based. We also know that "Carrie" has been renewed for a second season. The first season covered most of the events of King's novel, so the second season will have to be cut from whole cloth. 

If it's already been implied that "Carrie" and the "Evil Dead" movies take place in the same universe, perhaps Flanagan will pursue that moving forward. Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) could very well face off against — or team up with — the "Evil Dead" villains summoned by the Necronomicon (aka the Book of the Dead). 

It remains to be seen whether Flanagan will go that far with Season 2 of "Carrie," but you can bet fans of "Evil Dead" will be keeping their eyes peeled for further connections.