Best mystery movie questions of all time

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La Confidential picture

Question: What is Lynn's connection to the Nite Owl killings?

Answer: She doesn't really have one - not directly, anyway. The only link is that Susan Lefferts died at the Night Owl, and Bud saw Lynn with Lefferts when he was buying the alcohol for the party. Lefferts had the bandage on her nose at the time, which sparked Bud's curiosity and prompted him to seek out Lynn after Lefferts was murdered.

Tailkinker

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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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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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Nerve picture

Question: My understanding is that Vee orchestrated the plan for Ty to bring a blank filled gun, but how was the dare revealed to her before being told to shoot her opponent, let alone before given the gun?

Answer: Once she saw the gun and knew how crazy the game was, she formed an idea that someone's would get shot and believed that it would be her.

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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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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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Interstellar picture

Question: Why do they still have gravity when Romilly asks Cooper to turn of the spinning, when they neared the wormhole? The centrifugal force stops, but on the inside there is still gravity.

thibault

Chosen answer: They do not still have gravity. Romilly is actually floating, but nothing is ever shown from behind his back, so the floating is gone unnoticed. In fact, during some shots of Romilly, you can see his feet floating behind him.

Casual Person

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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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The Bone Collector picture

Question: Can someone please help? When the killer shows up at Rhyme's place at the end, he explains to him why he did it and how Rhyme did him wrong, but no matter how many times I watch it, I don't understand what exactly happened and how Rhyme was to blame for it?

Heather Benton

Chosen answer: The killer used to be a forensic scientist for law enforcement (where or when is never stated). Rhymes testified in court that evidence had been falsified, leading to wrongful prosecutions, the killer was sent to prison for this, where "every day I was brutalised". The killer blamed Rhymes for this, so set out to prove he was better by giving him a series of clues that he (in theory) couldn't solve. It should also be pointed out that Rhymes never met the killer or knew what he looked like.

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What Lies Beneath picture

Question: When Norman says the guy "that wrote that book he loves" (Shumway?) congratulated him on Spencer's Theorem, then Claire says "He didn't know your father was dead?" and Norman says "He knew". What does one thing have to do with the other? I've seen this movie at least 20 times and I can't figure out this conversation.

Ingabritzen

Chosen answer: Spencer's theorem was Norman's father's theorem. Norman wants to be greater than his father was, so to be accidentally complemented on something that his father did would be bad enough. To say that the guy knows that his father is dead is to imply that the guy probably insulted him intentionally.

Myridon

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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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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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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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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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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective picture

Question: How exactly does an escaped male mental patient who's posing as a woman a) work as a police officer without having violent mood swings most of the time, b) acquire money for breast implants and c) avoid a single physical examination that would have exposed his penis?

Answer: Just because someone has been institutionalized doesn't mean they have mood swings. If this was a manic episode (which it appears to be) there wouldn't be any swings at all. Just manic all the time. It wouldn't last forever, but its different for everyone. As for the money, plastic surgery can be financed! and we don't know if s/he had money stashed away beforehand. And for the last question, I just don't know. Not very likely, but some people get through lots of physical testing that shouldn't. Possibly documents were forged? Just speculation on my part.

Kimberly Mason

Answer: The money came from her pro football career, She stole an identity to become a police officer.

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The Shadow picture

Question: When Lamont is struggling to stop the Phurba from cutting his throat, how did he finally manage to get control over the Phurba and use it to stab Khan?

Answer: Mind control over matter.

turkman143

Answer: He had never gone up against someone like him. A man who not only knew how to harness his abilities, but had mastered them as well, like young Luke going up against Vader. He finally found the strength and the courage to fight and defeat him.

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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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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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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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Minority Report picture

Question: There's a quote that I don't understand: "The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen." I immediately thought, "Yes, it does change the fact that it was going to happen." If Witwer hadn't put his hand there, it would have happened. However, he did, thus "changing the fact that it was going to happen," right? Isn't this the point of the whole movie: determinism is foolish and that different actions produce different consequences?

Answer: No, he didn't change the fact that it was going to happen. He prevented it from happening. But until he stopped it, it was going to happen. And no matter how many times you look back at that sequence, it was going to happen. Up until a point, it was going to happen. It was just prevented.

Garlonuss

Answer: The statement involves the idea of arresting people who did not commit the crime yet but are going to. Until the precogs tell someone to change things, the idea is that it will happen. If Anderton had rolled the ball and the other guy was not watching, it was going to fall. The only way to change it would have been for Anderton to say something. Things will happen unless the future is changed. Ultimately the idea is proven sketchy at the end at best.

oldbaldyone

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