The road to adapting author Joe Hill and illustrator Gabriel Rodriguez’s acclaimed comic series Locke & Key proved winding and arduous. Netflix’s series finally brings the story to screen, with season one available to binge now. The show follows the Locke family, who move across the country and into their ancestral estate after the tragic murder of the patriarch. It’s there that they find magical keys, and an evil hellbent on retrieving them for itself. Though the inaugural season serves as a horror-fantasy gateway into horror (review), there’s a nod and cameo for dedicated horror fans; legendary makeup effects maestro Tom Savini. More than a fun horror reference, Savini’s inclusion in the series has a sentimental explanation.

Middle Locke sibling Kinsey (Emilia Jones), upon starting class at her new high school, immediately bonds with fellow student Scot Cavendish (Petrice Jones). Scot is an aspiring filmmaker who has assembled a like-minded group of friends to help him make a horror film. Savini serves as inspiration for the group’s name, the “Savini Squad.” In Kinsey’s first introductory meeting with the squad, team members debate Savini’s most exceptional work while watching horror movies, dropping titles like Day of the Dead. When Kinsey accepts a role as the movie’s final girl, she’s covered head to toe in fake blood as the squad tries to emulate Savini’s gore work.

In episode two, while little Bode Locke (Jackson Robert Scott) tries to uncover the mysteries of Keyhouse’s magical keys, he shows one of them to a local hardware shop owner for possible answers on its origin. That shopkeeper is none other than Tom Savini. The cameo makes for a wry wink to the “Savini Squad,” but Savini’s inclusion in the series offers a deeper meaning.

Comic author and series executive producer Joe Hill has an extensive history with the special effects artist. Savini directed an adaptation of Hill’s “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” for Shudder’s Creepshow series last year, a fitting segment for Savini to helm considering the pair first met on the original Creepshow film.

George A. Romero’s classic anthology film featured a wraparound segment that saw a boy, Billy, get unjustly punished for his love of comics only to get offered a chance for gruesome retribution from the Creep. A very young Joe Hill played Billy. In interviews, Hill mentions being on set for a week as a kid, and that Savini acted as his babysitter. Hill, who likened Savini to a Rockstar, cited that experience as deeply formative to his creative career in horror. That short week on the set of one of horror’s seminal anthologies with one of horror’s most celebrated special effects artists set him down the path of a career in the genre space.

So, Savini’s appearance in Locke & Key is a cute nod to horror fans and, perhaps, even fans of the more brutal and bloody comic series on which the series is based. But on a deeper level, it’s one very successful horror author paying homage to an idol that unlocked a lifelong passion. It’s a touching token of appreciation for being such a vital influence during childhood. In this context, Savini’s inclusion makes for one of the most magical aspects of the season.

Found within a series full of magic, no less.