The show references other horror movies such as The Shining (1980), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Amityville Horror (1979). Rosemary's Baby is Courteney Cox's favorite horror film.
The town centre is the same set that was used for Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls and Rosewood in Pretty Little Liars, and the high school also doubled for Stars Hollow High and Rosewood High respectively.
The third episode of season one is titled 'The Yellow Wallpaper', a reference to the homonymous classic feminist short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892, in which a woman goes insane because her doctor husband locks her in a room and treats her as though she were hysterical.
The opening scene of Episode 5 shows Pat (Courteney Cox) trying to rouse her family out of the haunted house and it is an homage to Poltergeist (1982).
The Phelps family dinner in front of the fireplace in S01E01 is shot to look like a scene in Rosemary's Baby (1968), which happens to be Courteney Cox's favorite horror film.