(I've even read that psychologists are studying up on star signs in order to better understand patients who bring them up in therapy! They need to know what it means when someone complains that their boyfriend is such a Scorpio.)
It’s a useful shorthand to explain the feeling that everything’s just a little bit off, and it dovetails with the rising popularity of astrology-which is now more mainstream than ever. Since that evening 15 years ago, it’s become so much more common for someone to mention that “Mercury is in retrograde” whenever they’re having a bad day. "They need to know what it means when someone complains that their boyfriend is such a Scorpio." Sure enough, a horrible fate awaits them as they pick up a hitchhiker (why?!!) and end up fleeing a chainsaw-wielding maniac.
In one of the first scenes, a cute brunette named Pam is on a road trip with friends when she consults her copy of American Astrology-Your Daily Guide and learns that the “malefic” planet Saturn is in retrograde, likely to unleash its evil on the world. The first time I ever heard about a planet being “in retrograde,” I was watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a boy I had a crush on after the late shift at the bookstore where we worked.