Sabrina Carpenter references death becoming her in Taste music video

Sabrina Carpenter, one of the pop princesses of the summer, whose songs “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” dethroned each other at the coveted top spots on the Billboard 100, is a well-known film buff. Her latest music video, “Taste,” the third single from her studio album Short and sweetIt is packed with references to classic horror films like Death suits him well and Kill Bill: Volume 1.

While “Please Please Please,” starring Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan (also Carpenter’s boyfriend), featured a Bonnie and Clyde narrative heavily inspired by Quentin Tarantino and Bennifer (the couple moniker of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck), the singer-songwriter’s “Taste” instead draws from horror movie tradition, co-starring Gen Z “scream queen” Jenna Ortega.

The video, released on August 23 alongside the album, follows Carpenter as she embarks on a revenge-filled quest to bring justice to a former lover (played by Halloween ends In the three-minute clip, directed by Dave Meyers, the two women exact increasingly bloody revenge on each other, with knives, chainsaws and voodoo dolls galore. The video’s wry, darkly comic denouement shows Ortega accidentally slicing her boyfriend in half (believing he was Carpenter’s character, who swapped their bodies back and forth in the middle of the pair’s kiss). Resigned to attending the funeral together and accepting their twin fates, the pair walk off together as new evil best friends, leaving behind a mother who cries hysterically.

“So insecure,” Ortega exclaims of the dead boyfriend as the two walk away with milkshakes in hand. Laughing uproariously, Carpenter replies, “You kill me.”

While “Taste” features plenty of broad references (chainsaws related to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Creepy dolls similar to Chucky (Child’s Play) and even a font to match Tarantino’s. Popular fiction — The following list includes more explicit references to favorite horror films. Read on for the full list.