Jim Cunningham says drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex are “instruments of fear.” In the film, Donnie smokes cigarettes, consumes alcohol, and engages in premarital sex. The climax of the film occurs after Donnie surrenders to all three of these temptations.
When Donnie informs Gretchen he burned down a house, they are walking in front of Jim Cunningham’s house. The Life Line Exercise Card that Donnie reads is about a girl who finds a lost wallet. Later in the movie, Donnie finds Jim Cunningham’s apparently lost wallet on the sidewalk outside Jim’s mansion.
In the “Cunning Visions” video, Jim Cunningham (later exposted to be a child molestor) pats a child on his behind. The young boy at the assembly who wants to learn how to fight is, in fact, the same boy who appears in Jim Cunningham’s video.
The video game Donnie plays at the arcade is the Sega car racing game “Out Run” (released in 1986).
This film was voted #9 in Film4’s “50 Films To See Before You Die”.
The film Donnie Darko and Stephen King’s It both feature a bully who uses a knife as a weapon. The bully in Donnie Darko is named Seth Devlin. His surname is a reference to the devil. The sticker inside Devlin’s school locker says: “What would Satan do?”
The film has many Stephen King references. According to the director’s commentary, the book which Eddie Darko is reading while in bed is Stephen King’s “The Tommyknockers”. Earlier in the movie, Eddie’s wife Rose is shown reading Stephen King’s “It”.
