Best mystery movie questions of all time

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The Ninth Gate picture

Question: Does "the girl" - as she's been called - have a name? And is she a (or the) devil?

Answer: She was not given a name, neither in the film nor credits. She is simply known as "The Girl". As to precisely who she is, it is deliberately left ambiguous. But the last engraving found by Corso does seem to indicate that she is the Whore of Babylon mentioned in the Book of Revelation.

Twotall

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Answer: To add slightly to the other answer, evidently some of the blood in the scene had to be digitally removed for the film to secure a PG-13 rating, which explains why we don't see any actual spray/gush. But we are to assume that a drop managed to splash onto her shoe when he slit his throat.

TedStixon

Answer: The rationale is that blood can travel quite far from an artery and her shoe therefore got the droplet on it even from the doorway - however it does seem to me that the filmic portrayal is lacking, since you don't actually see any instance of spray. Rian Johnson' script says "Blood gushes." What we see in the scene is that it is trickling down his cut - a bit.

Sammo

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Candyman picture

Question: What did Candyman mean when he told Helen it was always her? Why was he so interested in Helen?

Answer: When Helen goes back and sees the mural of his murder, the camera lingers on a woman in the picture that looks like her. This is the woman Candyman was in love with before he was killed. The implication is either she was reincarnated as Helen, or Helen reminded him of her, hence his interest in her.

dewinela

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Copycat picture

Question: Who is Conrad? Harry Conick, Jr.'s character writes him a letter at the end, and there is a Conrad character listed in the credits, but I haven't been able to find him.

Answer: I thought that it was Peter Kurten (Foley) that broke in and left the book. However if it was Conrad, then he does not appear in the flesh in the film.

Alan Keddie

You are correct. I just rewatched this tonight on Tubi.

Answer: Conrad is the man that breaks into Helen's flat and leaves the book. Happens just over 1 hour into the film.

jle

Answer: I don't think Conrad appears in the film. Earlier in the movie HC Jr says he has other "disciples"; Conrad seems to be the new recruit to replace the just-killed McNamara character.

JeffOCDmovieADDict

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Who's Harry Crumb? picture

Question: When Harry finds Eliot tied up, he removes the tape and tells him that the kidnappers have been caught. Why did Eliot confess to being the actual mastermind behind the kidnapping? Harry had no idea it was Eliot behind it all so he could have gotten away with it if he didn't say anything.

Answer: Eliot mistakenly believed that Harry had figured out what his part was in the kidnapping, and, exasperated by Harry's dumb luck, Eliot stupidly confessed. He was then arrested.

raywest

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Rosemary's Baby picture

Question: What is the name of the melody that Mia Farrow sings (La La La Laaaa, La La La Lalala La Laaaaa) at the beginning of the movie, as the title/credits are being displayed?

Shipper

Chosen answer: It doesn't have a specific title. It was a lullaby written for the film by Krzysztof Komeda. There's a few variations of the lullaby heard throughout the film, the opening credits version is listed as "Rosemary's Baby Main Theme - Vocal."

Bishop73

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Shutter Island picture

Question: The children in Teddy's hallucinations were bloody but they died by drowning. Is this just an inference to Andrew's guilt that his children's "blood is on his hands" because he didn't seek treatment for Dolores' mental illness? Or is it Scorsese being overly dramatic and adding a lot of blood where it doesn't belong? Also, how exactly did Andrew kill Dolores? Did he use his service revolver, even though we don't hear the shot?

MovieFan612

Chosen answer: I think the recurring blood comes from the blood of his wife when he killed her. there was a lot of blood you see, in his psychosis that means a lot and has taken over a large part of his hallucinations, just like Dachau camp. Yes, he did shoot his wife Dolores, in the belly. You can see it in the end of the movie.

lionhead

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Cube 2: Hypercube picture

Question: If Sasha really is blind and she is Alex Trusk but she IS a computer hacker.What good is a computer hacker that blind wouldn't she not be able to see the screen or anything of the sort?

link8265

Chosen answer: Blind people use computers all the time. There are Braille monitors that interpret the visual images on the screen into Braille. They can also use speech synthesisers to convert the images into audible information.

Tailkinker

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Tomorrowland picture

Question: David Nix is talking about how they saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic, but the monitor was built after the world fair in 1963, and the Titanic sank in 1912 - how is it possible for that to happen?

Answer: He was using it as a metaphor. The Titanic being mankind heading towards its own destruction. Man was warned of the dangers (wars, global warming, etc) and we didn't do anything to change our ways, "went full stem ahead".

Bishop73

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The Grudge picture

Question: How exactly does the father kill the wife? I noticed when she comes down the stairs she comes out of a bloody bag. So how is she killed?

Answer: Well, in the Japanese original (Ju-On: The Grudge), it shows that Takeo, the father, killed his wife by shoving a knife down her throat or something similar to that. When he was killing her, she tried to scream, except her scream came out all messed up (because the knife hit the vocal chords), which explains the horrible croaking noise. There's no doubt about it that it's the way she was killed in this version.

Answer: Another website states that after pushing her down, Kayako sprained her ankle and crawled down the stairs, only to realise Takeo was slowly following her from behind watching her suffer. He then snapped her neck, but she was still alive and could only make the croaking noise. It is also implied that he stabbed her multiple times afterwards, which could explain the bloody corpse.

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Inception picture

Question: Me and my friend have debated this each time we have watched the movie and I finally decided to ask the question here to see who is right. When they are discussing their plan and saying they need the plane for it, Saito says "I bought the airline... It seemed neater." My interpretation of this is that he bought out all the tickets on that particular flight so the plane would be empty and weed out risk of interruption from other passengers, as doing that made it so there are no other passengers. But my friend thinks he means he bought the entire brand of the airline, so that he now owns the company that has that plane. Like buying out SouthWest Airlines as a company or something. So who is right? What did Saito mean? Did he buy out all the tickets for that flight, or did he buy the whole airline company?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: He bought out the actual airline company. If he'd bought out all the tickets for that specific journey he'd have said "I bought out the flight" or similar. It's a deliberately over the top moment of exuberance to highlight exactly how rich Satio is. I'm afraid that it is your friend who is correct, sorry.

Manky

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Halloween II picture

Question: How can Michael recognize Laurie as his younger sister since he wouldn't have seen her since she was only two years old?

Answer: There is a scene where Laurie dreams about meeting Michael as a young teen. It's unknown whether this is an actual memory of real events, but since nothing indicates otherwise, we could assume the he saw her at an older age when she looked closer to her 17-year-old self.

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The Commuter picture

Question: Why does the weather and road/ground change so much (dry, rain storm, wet, snow) in the beginning of the movie from the kitchen to the train station?

Answer: The opening credit scene (waking up, in the kitchen, the drive, being on the train, and walking through the terminal) is montage where each cut represents another day in Michael's life. It's meant to show the monotony of his life through the whole year (or even years) and how he follows the same routine everyday.

Bishop73

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Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls picture

Question: Greenwall says that the warrior must stand on the tower for five days. Wouldn't he die of dehydration?

Answer: Not if somebody climbed up and gave him some water to drink.

Answer: As someone else said, somebody could give him water. The test might be more about staying in one place and denying himself the daily activities and pleasures of life - not having access to his usual amount of water and food.

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Heathers picture

Question: In the scene in the girl's locker room, after Heather Chandler's death, why does Veronica get into a shower with her clothes on?

Answer: I think it's one of those "This can't be happening, I must be dreaming" moments. Same as when a character pinches themselves in order to wake up, or they tell someone to pinch them. Veronica can hardly believe what she and JD did.

Answer: Most likely it's an act of contrition, symbolically attempting to "wash away" her sin.

raywest

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Answer: It's never explained why but, judging from the numerous license plates from other vehicles attached to his truck, the truck driver is a serial killer and was just targeting people at random and decided to make David his next target.

Trucks used to have to be registered in multiple states if they were going to operate in them. It was very common to see semi trucks with a half dozen or so license plates on them, each from a different state.

Answer: According to director Steven Spielberg, the trucker was a serial killer, and each of the license plates were trophies from previous victims.

Answer: David pulled ahead of the truck not once but twice. He got to the gas station first, and got served before the trucker. For any normal person this would not be cause to try to murder someone, however the truck driver is an unhinged psychopath who doesn't need much reason to go into an obsessive rage. Add to that the fact that David is driving a much smaller car, and the fact that they're out in the middle of nowhere with nary a cop around, and the truck driver probably saw David as easy prey.

Answer: "It was very common to see semi trucks with a half dozen or so license plates on them, each from a different state." And that's how the psycho trucker got away with it. He could have those 'trophy' plates on the front of the truck in plain sight, and to anyone who saw it, the truck would look like just another big rig with multiple license plates. Nothing out of the ordinary or suspicious about it.

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Unknown picture

Question: What (if any) is the significance of the "OZ" graffiti that pops up throughout the film? It became quite distracting as I thought it would pay off at the end of the film.

Answer: The 'OZ' sprayer is a very disturbed man who claims to be an artist but the courts think otherwise. You can found his OZ (which he claims to be read OLI!) everywhere in Berlin and Hamburg. It has absolutely nothing to do with the movie but you can't film a wide open scene in Berlin without taping it.

Answer: Mise en scene. OZ / OLI is firstly a name. Asking what or rather who OZ / OLI is, is the point. One of the main questions of the film is what constitutes a person's identity.

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Premonition picture

Question: If Sandra is at the scene of the accident, what is the purpose of the police officer showing up at the door to tell her Jim is dead?

Answer: It's fairly obvious that this film's theme is that knowing the future changes it. I.e. knowing there would be an accident, she travelled there and caused an accident.

Answer: Possibly she left the scene before the police arrived, so they did not know she had been there.

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Chosen answer: According to his wife, the painting was made specifically for the movie. Robert doesn't paint at all.

Answer: He's a surfer dude, he wanted to be polishing his boards for that scene.

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Flightplan picture

Question: At the end of the movie, when they are at the tip of the plane, Jodi and her daughter slip into a tiny compartment, just as she activates the bomb. She and her daughter are safe, and the small space they were in must have been bomb-proof. Since that compartment is at a part of the plane that is rarely visited, how come a tiny place was made entirely bomb-proof? Or what was the space they climbed into and for what reason was it made?

Answer: The hatch they climb into is the hold of the plane, i.e., the section with the coffin, the car, and all the other luggage in. It only appears small because of the way it is filmed. As Kyle would have known, it would have been extra strong and reinforced, as it was a break in two sections of the plane.

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