Repo Man

:For the person who repossesses property, see Repossession.

Recurring themes and references

• References to "plate of shrimp" throughout.
• In the hospital scene, a "Dr. Benway" and a "Mr. Lee" are paged, both are characters from novels by William S. Burroughs.
• "Dioretix" a pun on L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and the term diuretic
• The dangerous glow emitted from the trunk of the Chevy Malibu is a homage to the bright, glowing contents of the mysterious box in the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly directed by Robert Aldrich.
• Food and beverages throughout the movie appear in generic white containers with blue-lettered labels reading "food", "beer", etc. (This was actually due to the need to save money on the film.)
• Pine-scented car deodorizers shaped like evergreen trees are placed in most cars. These items were one of the few sponsored items in this movie and hundreds of these deodorizers were donated to the filmmakers for this movie, without scent. Miller, the mechanic-philosopher, also noted the pervasive presence of the scented pine tree deodorizers in repossessed cars, telling Otto, "You'll find one in every car, you'll see." (One even appears on a policeman's motorcycle.)
• Many of the "repo men" of the Helping Hand Corporation are named after popular beers or allude to beer: Bud, Oly, Lite, Miller.
• Quite a few Los Angeles-based punk rock musicians cast in roles large and small include: Dick Rude and Keith Morris (with his band, The Circle Jerks) as well as The Untouchables (as the scooter guys). Also cast is Los Angeles club maven, Rodney Bingenheimer (aka "Rodney on the ROQ") in a cameo role as a club owner.
• Posters for "Harry Pace for City Council" in the background throughout the film. (Alex Cox has said that "Harry Pace" was an indirect reference to "happy face." The character, Leila, also wears happy face pins.)
• The scene when Agent Rogersz and Leila torture Otto appears to be a reference to the Milgram experiment.