Who’s ready for the ultimate Easter egg hunt?
Missing is absolutely packed to the brim with clues, connections to Searching, new story beats for the alien invasion subplot, and more hidden gems. Viewers caught quite a few of them when the film hits theaters back in January, but there are some that are near impossible to detect without rewatching the film and scouring every frame for sneaky details. In fact, there's one especially tough-to-find Easter egg with an interactive quality, and now that Missing is available to watch at home digitally, you can play along.
The movie is Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian, Natalie Qasabian, Nicholas D. Johnson, and Will Merrick’s screen thriller follow-up to their 2018 release, Searching. Searching saw a father (John Cho) try to find his missing daughter using the tools available to him on his phone and computer while Missing flips that idea around. In the new film, it’s Storm Reid’s June trying to track down her missing mother (Nia Long).
As the mystery unfolds, the behind-the-scenes team continues that alien invasion subplot, they pepper in references to Searching and Chaganty’s 2020 film Run, and even include a few personal Easter eggs as well. Most are subtle but just evident enough to pinpoint on repeat viewings. However, apparently there’s one that’s hidden so well that no one’s managed to track it down yet. It's an especially complex Easter egg that demands viewers interact with the movie like a video game.
During a conversation focused on the Searching Easter eggs hidden throughout Missing, producer Sev Ohanian teased:
“Our directors, Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, they incorporated an Easter egg in Missing that I don't feel at liberty to talk about yet because I think it's such a masterpiece that requires somebody to actually treat the entire movie like a video game because there's moments where you have to pause and you have to deduct a code and then apply that code to another moment and apply ... It's insane, Perri. I did not even understand the depths of this Easter egg until the night of the premiere where they told me the final steps. That could be a fun follow up maybe when the home video comes out, but it's insane.”
Guess what time it is? Digital release time! Ohanian didn’t give us the specifics on what this hidden element is or precisely how to play all the levels of this video game within the movie, but he did exclusively give Collider a hint on where to start. Here’s what he told us via e-mail:
“Okay so this insanely elaborate video-game style Easter egg, which would involve someone having to piece together multiple clues in a trail across the whole movie starts with a major clue: When June goes to the website for GUISE -- the secret messaging app.”
Ready to begin the hunt? I won’t give away the precise time code, but if you purchase a digital copy of Missing, you might find the starting point of this Easter egg soon after the midpoint of the movie. Happy hunting!