Emesis Blue wears many of its inspirations in horror media on its sleeve, with expies and scene references abound.
- The Arc Words "It's eternity in there" and "Longer than you think" are both direct quotations from Stephen King's The Jaunt, which implies that the process of going through a botched respawn is similar to passing through a Jaunt while conscious — eternal, torturous, and maddening. The screenplay also refers to the zombie mercs that Jane and Cyclops encounter as "Jaunts".
- Combined with Foreshadowing - Jeremy comes across a VHS recording of the film M (1931) at Ludwig's clinic and ends up watching it at home on his television. After Scout is kidnapped and his mother is murdered, the assailant leaves a calling card in the form of an M drawn in blood on the wall.
- The other tapes in Medic's collection are The King in Yellow, Faust, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Grinning Face, The Invisible Man and Metropolis.
- Jeremy's full name, "Jeremy E.", is a likely reference to Jeremy Elbertson.
- The Detective is held up by the Undertaker much like John Doe holds up Mills in Se7en.
- The reflection of Ludwig reaching through the mirror happened to Ash in Evil Dead 2.
- The Detective introduces himself and his aide to the police as Detective Mannix and Lieutenant Columbo respectively.
- The Engineers who run the slaughterhouse are named Zed and Maynard. Fittingly, they have a Torture Cellar where they keep someone imprisoned, and Zed specifically is shot after attempting to reach for his gun.
- Much like that film, the MacGuffin in this one is a briefcase with unknown contents.
- Zed's last words being "I would've got you" and the reveal that he didn't actually draw a gun mirrors the ending of Falling Down.
- The Face-Revealing Turn of the RED Zombie Soldier is very reminiscent of the first zombie encounter in Resident Evil.
- The Undead Heavy says "Builders League..." in a way reminiscent of Nemesis saying "S.T.A.R.S...", and is just about as implacable as any Tyrants from his series are.
- His appearance also greatly resembles Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 (Remake), even sharing the Berserk Button of someone shooting off his hat.
- When Ludwig encounters the Respawn machine's computer terminal, the shots are framed similarly to Hal's encounter with the Monolith. The monitor's sounds are also lifted directly from the Nostromo's Mother Computer.
- The war room Soldier discovers references the iconic setting of Dr. Strangelove, complete with the colors fading to black and white while he's inside it.
- While Archibald advertises the Respawn Machine and the nine mercenaries to Blutarch, Blutarch angrily insists that they must not allow a "Respawn Gap" to Archibald's bafflement.
- The scenes in Dell's bar, the shot of the blood flooding out of the Respawn Machine and Cyclops's corpse being found frozen and looking up obviously reference The Shining.
- The Butcher is a Stock Slasher with some obvious references.
- They wear a White Mask of Doom that evokes Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers.
- The supposed Gory Discretion Shot where the Butcher reveals their mask-less face to the Detective is very similar to Jason showing off his face to a group of punks in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
- They get both of their eyes shot out just like Michael in the climax for Halloween II (1981).
- The plot thread about a struggle for a briefcase feels at least partially like a send-up to Pulp Fiction in how it's handled. We never learn what's in the case, when characters are prodded about it they dodge the question or just can't answer because they don't know or can't understand what it is, and the only hint we get of what it is consists of a radiant light whenever it's opened. The main difference is that while Wallace's briefcase was played for comedy and mystery, the case in Emesis Blue is played for quiet, mounting horror.
- When Ludwig bursts out of Jules' coffin, he sports an extremely pale face, shaggy hair and a black sweater. Furthermore, him turning violent after he's knocked unconscious (and later after being killed and coming back) seems to be a shout-out to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (one of the tapes Ludwig had in his office) where the character of Cesare is made to kill people in his sleep.
- The pit beneath Conagher Slaughterhouse looks incredibly similar to how Hell is depicted in The House That Jack Built, down to a similar high-pitched drone of the screaming souls of the damned.
- The hallucination of Cyclops' line, "Our true enemy has yet to reveal himself," is lifted directly from The Sopranos. (Which in turn was a paraphrase of a quote from The Godfather: Part III.)
- When the detective is hospitalised for his burns, he is placed in a full body traction device that closely resembles one seen in a photograph of a burn victim that is commonly misidentified as one of the victims of the 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident
. - Jane Doe watching the past Jeremy and Ludwig drive by in an ambulance may be a reference to Jacob's Ladder.
- The permanent rictus grin on the Hunter's face looks eerily similar to the mask of The Grabber from The Black Phone.
- Late into the film, Ludwig has a vision/flashback where he sees his initial conversation with Jeremy from an outside perspective. He inadvertently knocks over the box of VHS tapes and bursts the doors open as he tries to warn his past self, but it doesn't work. Nearly identical to what Cooper does in Interstellar.
- Ludwig's hijacking of an ambulance is very similar to a scene from Reservoir Dogs, complete with pistol-whipping the windshield.
- Ludwig hallucinating Jeremy sitting next to him as he's driving the ambulance away from the crime scene is possibly a homage to Mandy, where Red Miller hallucinates his wife in a similar manner after killing the cult that murdered her.
- A photo of Jules Archibald executing Jane Doe seen late in the film is a direct reference to the infamous photo of the Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém.◊
- The highway scene is almost identical to the highway from, quite funnily, Lost Highway.
- In that same scene, Jeremy, who is most likely a hallucination of Ludwig's broken mind, staring at him is very similar to the Ghost stare meme.
- In that same scene, Jeremy, who is most likely a hallucination of Ludwig's broken mind, staring at him is very similar
- A minor one — Fortress Films' Emesis Diazepam video, effectively a trailer for the film, is an homage to the Local58 video Real Sleep.
- The shot of a blue planet to go with the Evil Corp company logo might be a reference to Neptune being used as an Arc Symbol in Gemini Home Entertainment.
- Jane ends up escaping via the sewer system, spreading his arms as the rain washes over him.
