Best thriller movie questions of 1986

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Aliens picture

Question: I know that the studio chose James Cameron to direct due to the strength of his script, but why wasn't Ridley Scott offered the chance to direct? And was the studio considering a sequel before Cameron joined?

Dra9onBorn117

Answer: It really was all down to James Cameron having already written the script and proving himself capable of directing with 'The Terminator.' It was just a quicker, easier, and almost certainly cheaper decision to let him direct his own script rather than get someone else, even Ridley Scott. While the producers had wanted to make an 'Alien' sequel almost immediately, at the time the head of 20th Century Fox didn't want to pursue it fearing it would be seen as an obvious cash-in and flop. When a new executive at the studio came in a couple years later, the project was put back on track, and I believe Cameron was the first to be approached to write the script.

TonyPH

Chosen answer: The studio was considering a sequel before Cameron was involved, but regarding directing it, Ridley Scott told "The Hollywood" in a 2008 interview, "They didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one." The studio liked Cameron's script and at that time he had enough clout to be able to insist on directing it.

raywest

More Aliens questions
Maximum Overdrive picture

Question: One of the early posters of this film shows a bearded guy (who is not in the film) coming through a wall crack and holding puppet strings with one hand. Who is this guy supposed to be and what does he represent?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: He does bear a striking resemblance to Stephen King. King was both the writer and director of this movie, and as such, was certainly the guy in charge of all the character's fates and pulling all the strings.

Twotall

Answer: It is Stephen King.

More Maximum Overdrive questions
The Manhattan Project picture

Question: Would the interference from the plutonium keep the RC car from working?

Answer: Radiation wouldn't necessarily affect a remote control car. It would contaminate it, but beyond that the car would continue to work.

More The Manhattan Project questions
The Wraith picture

Question: What are those devices we see disappear from the wraith's arm and after the second and third race supposed to be?

Mister Ed

Chosen answer: I believe they are markers to show how many people are left to take revenge on for his death.

EMTurbo

The problem with that answer is that the Wraith had to kill five people (Oggie, Minty, Skank, Gutterboy and Packard) and he only had four of those metal braces. If he had one for each gang member he wanted revenge on, he would have had five. I think he was only given four chances to crash his car and reassemble, and once they were gone, that was it. That's why he killed Skank and Gutterboy at the same time.

More The Wraith questions
The Fly picture

Question: Well into the movie, Seth's computer, which uses voice recognition, can no longer recognize his voice due to his transformation. How then, did he hook up the three telepods and execute the final sequence if he couldn't get into his computer?

William Bergquist

Chosen answer: He just used the keyboard. We see him typing on it several times before this scene, so the computer is not voice command only.

Grumpy Scot

More The Fly questions
Blue Velvet picture

Question: When Jeffrey and Sandy are discussing where Isabella Rossellini lived, it is mentioned that she lived on the 7th floor of the apartment building. When they show the outside of the building it appears to have only 4 floors. Was this symbolic or an oversight?

Answer: There's probably not any symbolic meaning, despite the number seven having multiple magical connotations to it. Most likely, this is just a movie inconsistency.

raywest

More Blue Velvet questions
Manhunter picture

Question: How did Graham know that Dollarhyde was the man committing murders, and that he drove a van just because the home videos were processed at the lab where the latter worked?

Chinmay Hota

Chosen answer: He figured out earlier that the Tooth Fairy drives a van. Graham noticed that at one of the houses, the Tooth Fairy knew everything he had to do and bring with him and at the other house, he didn't know about the new lock on the door. He concludes that this is because the Tooth Fairy got his information from the same home movies that Graham was watching. Once the films were traced to the lab where Dolarhyde worked, it was easy to link them back to him as the only person who'd had access to both families' videos and also drove a van.

Captain Defenestrator

More Manhunter questions
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives picture

Question: Why did Jason go into the children's cabin the first and second times? And why did he just draw close to Nancy when she saw him?

JohnShel91

Chosen answer: The first and second visits are unexplained. However he drew close to Nancy to install fear in her.

Ssiscool

Answer: Yes, I don't believe he was trying to scare her; I think he was just looking at her out of genuine curiosity.

Answer: In all his attacks he's never killed children, it's like he's never seen them before. Plus, it's almost he trying to recall memories of what he's looking at. "Where have I seen these little people before."

The children might possibly remind Jason of his own days at the camp when he was a child, before he drowned.

More Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives questions
Poltergeist II: The Other Side picture

Question: Why did Kane want to abduct Carol Anne so badly and what would he have been able to do if he succeeded?

Answer: He is in the first movie and is referred to as "The Beast." In this movie he is in his human form and he want Carol-Anne because he believes that she can lead him and his people into the light and crossover from this world to a better place.

More Poltergeist II: The Other Side questions

Chosen answer: It was both. Wynn, a fine character actor, was suffering from pancreatic cancer while this film was being made. He died in 1986, the same year the film was released.

raywest

More Black Moon Rising questions

F/X (1986)

F/X picture

Question: Lipton the Justice Department official tells Rollie Tyler, "I really admired your stuff, ever since 'Vermin from Venus.'" Rollie's female assistant responds, "That's the one that got him deported from Australia." My question is how could Rollie have been deported from Australia, when he was born, raised and lived his whole life there? Where would he have been deported to?

Rollie55

Answer: It was most likely a joke, the movie was so horrible it gave Rollie a bad reputation and probably got him blacklisted.

More F/X questions
The Hitcher picture

Question: In the shot where John Ryder is in the van and uses a metal like object to unlock the handcuffs. When Jim Halsey was to be talking to John in prison, they are holding hands. I was wondering if Jim could've put the metal object into John's hands, so that John could escape and Jim could kill him himself? As like a kind of getting back at thing for all that he had to go through.

Answer: What you see him playing with is a link on the chains around his waist - note chains, not handcuffs. We know he's a resourceful guy, and just before he escapes, we see the two guards playing cards, with the shotgun loosely on one's lap - based on what we know about the configuration of the truck, John would have easily been able to leap forward and grab the shotgun while we see Jim driving up to the truck. John then shoots the guards with the shotgun we now know he just grabbed.

More The Hitcher questions

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.