Lead character Evan Piper is an updated version of Travis Bickle, plagued by loneliness and mentally sickened by New York City. His melancholy voice-overs, solitary lifestyle, and dependence on his job are just some of the echoes of "Taxi Driver".
A few allusions to True Romance: both films are love stories centered around drug deals. Both films feature a scene in which one character holds another at gunpoint and tries to "bluff" him into revealing his loyalty. Grace and the Storm even uses a line of dialogue from True Romance in the same context, when Rich asks Pipe, "how much you got?" Pipe replies "enough to get you high."