"Snowpiercer" a piercing stab at Terry?

[bruttenholm]

The final answer from the director himself :

Is there a Terry Gilliam shoutout in this film?

John Hurt's character is named Gilliam, and some of the weird oppressive visuals are very reminiscent of some of Terry Gilliam's films, especially Brazil. But while Bong is a fan of Brazil, he doesn't consider it much of an influence on this film — this was his first English-language film, so he had a hard time naming the characters, he said. He just reached for names of famous directors and other people from American films to come up with the names.