Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: Did Abberline use drugs to see visions after his wife and child died, or had he used them before?

Answer: Johnny Depp said in an interview that Abberline was a hypersensitive guy and had a lot of demons and a dark history. He probably start doing drugs to feel numb against the pain that he lost his wife and child since he desperately wanted a family.

Answer: It's not known if Abberline used Absinth before his wife died. But I doubt that he would have used Absinth or any other form of drugs when he was married.

Answer: The real-life Abberline didn't use opium or absinthe or anything else, and he wasn't psychic, and he and his two wives never lost any children nor had any children. Aside from the very few facts regarding the Ripper murders, everything in the movie is fictional, fake. Therefore, irrelevant.

Charles Austin Miller

I think those questions are meant for the fictional movie not the real story of Abberline.

Question: As a vampire, Max wasn't allowed in the house until Michael invited him. How were David and his friends allowed inside since they were never invited? Also, how was Star, even though she was only half-vampire able to get into the house? She asked for permission but Michael said no.

Answer: In the film, being invited in isn't a requirement to enter. It's simply a way for the vampire to render you powerless (i.e. the tests the boys performed on Max).

Answer: As stated Star was half vampire, she has some of their powers not all. Max said, "Once you invite a vampire into your home, it renders you powerless." Which is why the holy water and garlic worked. They were not invited, they crashed in.

Answer: It's not that they can't "get in." Its that once you invite them.it renders you "powerless" (according to Max). Lets not forget that David and his friends were all killed. Max was stronger and probably would have won if Grandpa didn't crash into the house and impale him. Basically they can enter anytime...but being invited in gives them an advantage.

Gavin Jackson

Except they weren't invited in. Only Max was.

Answer: Obviously, they were all invited in, one after another.

Charles Austin Miller

Only Max was invited in. Nowhere in the movie does it show David and the others being invited. And again, how did Star get into the house when she wasn't invited either?

Star and the others didn't need an invitation to enter any house, and they do not lose their powers once inside. If someone invites a vampire in, then they give the vampire an additional advantage, i.e. holy water won't burn them, they are unaffected by garlic, a mirror shows their reflection, etc. It is the inviter who loses all power against a vampire.

raywest

Question: Look at how powerful the blast is when Kyle detonates the explosives. Wouldn't a blast as powerful as depicted kill both Kyle and Carson in real life?

Answer: Most likely, in real life, the blast would kill them, but this is a movie, and as the Mythbusters proved many times on their TV show, Hollywood does not always adhere to scientific fact when it serves the purpose of telling the story. This is called 'suspension of disbelief'.

raywest

Question: How did the poor street magicians manage to execute their final magic trick in NYC? If Tressler had paid in advance for the gimmicks, wouldn't he have seen to it that the trick infrastructure was dismantled after the New Orleans trick?

Answer: Thaddeus met up with Tressler in a bar after the New Orleans performance and convinced him to let the next performance to go ahead. The two make a deal that if the New York performance will go ahead, Thaddeus will debunk their tricks to expose and destroy them.

Casual Person

Question: In the end of the movie when Jerry is shot, why is he airlifted to another hospital, doesn't the mental hospital have a trauma center?

Answer: Yes, that hospital may have had a trauma unit, but the NSA team, if they were NSA, led by Lowery / Hatcher (the guy who Alice 'knocked out') wanted to get Jerry away from Alice ASAP so that she would no longer be in any danger. The chopper then flew him, offscreen, to get patched up. Also we don't know that Jerry was airlifted to another hospital. But we can assume. An NSA controlled hospital. Or private government facility. A place where no questions would be asked.

Alan Keddie

Question: Why not live underground most of the time and only emerge when necessary?

Answer: That's essentially what the family is trying to do. They come up for supplies and to use the radio to try and reach the outside world. They built the basement area and used what supplies they had for soundproofing.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: Unsurprisingly, there weren't any underground living spaces nearby, and creating one would generate sound.

Question: Why is water flooding into the basement?

Answer: During the attack on the compound while the baby is being delivered one of the creatures breaks a water pipe and it begins flooding into the basement.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Couldn't Dewey have just stopped the train, backed it up, and then changed the switch instead of hopping out of the cab?

Answer: He would have been able to, although he would have lost a considerable amount of time in doing so. However, the film was based on a true story where the engineer of CSX 888 noticed a misaligned switch and saw he wouldn't be able to stop in time, so he decided to get out of the cab to align the switch. He thought he set the locomotive up properly to make it safe to get out and back in, thus avoiding the need fully to stop and then back up. So it's not really a matter of what Dewy could have done differently since they were just following events has they had already occurred.

Bishop73

Question: The captain of the first Icarus is insane, burned worse than Freddy Krueger, and his crew has been dead conceivably for 7 years. How is he even alive still without medical care, let alone able to attack and murder members of the second Icarus crew? Insanity doesn't bar one from infection or organ failure.

Answer: Actually, there is a perfectly logical explanation for Pinbacker being on the Icarus II: he went through the airlock while the team was searching the ship and sabotaged the connection from there.

Friso94

Wouldn't the Icarus II immediately sense his presence though? As soon as Capa and Mace reach the airlock, the ship acknowledges that they are there.

Phaneron

Answer: It is implied that Pinbacker's dedication to his mission to destroy humanity allows him to ignore his injuries. It must also be pointed out that Pinbacker was intentionally designed by director Danny Boyle to break the "realism" of the film. His survival is intended to be almost supernatural. Note that there is no possible way Pinbacker could have made it from Icarus I to Icarus II, but he does somehow and it's never explained.

BaconIsMyBFF

Show generally

Question: What's the name of the episode where Charlie and Alan are hiding in the Toilet and Alan says "Charlie" and then Charlie says "I told you it might take a while"?

Answer: That would be "Corey's Been Dead For an Hour" in season 4, episode 9.

Super Grover

Question: Why are the audience members at Don Juan shocked at the "provocative" nature of the performance? I get people were more conservative during those times, but didn't the audience members choose to go to that play? Were people just excited to see a new play and did not expect to the performance to be provocative?

lala831

Answer: I do not think that the audience was shocked by the 'provocative' performance but the music being played. (I think that because of the conductor's reaction and whatever) But I do have an answer for as to why the audience reacted in a certain way.I suppose they are used to the kind of music that the Opera performed. I think that The Phantom purposely wrote the music in with that specific vibe and whatnot and it might be because he wanted Christine (and perhaps himself as well) to be the only performers with beautiful lyrics and music.

debbi.ee

Question: Who laced the cookies that were given to the children with arsenic? It's never shown who applies it, only who takes the cookies to them.

Answer: When the children discover the cookies had been poisoned (revealed by the death of their pet mouse which ate part of one of the cookies), they suspect their grandmother. After all, she was the one who had been cruel to them all along. But eventually, they realise that it was in fact, their mother, Corinne, who was lacing the cookies with poison. She was doing so with the hope that the children would eventually die, seemingly from disease. In doing so, she would secure the family inheritance which was contingent upon her never having had children from her first marriage. They eventually confront their mother on the day of her second wedding, and a struggle ensues which ultimately leads to Corinne falling to her death from a balcony.

Michael Albert

Question: Can someone be shot through the side and just duct tape the entry and exit holes? (Wouldn't the bullet have mushroomed in the body and not exited anyway?) If there were a real gunshot wound like that, how long until he bleeds out?

Answer: Duct taping the wounds may seal the injury and hold the bleeding, but it may not be effective. If something along the lines of this would happen in real life, it would be best to tend to the wounds properly in case of infection. Whether or not the bullet would get stuck inside the body depends on if whether or not the bullet hits something, that would cause it to get stuck inside the body. How long until someone would bleed out in real life depends on the severity of the gunshot wound and whether or not something major was hit.

Casual Person

Question: It was discovered that Chucky was able to transfer his soul into Andy's Good Guy in the first movie by not only saying a chant but also using a magic amulet. So why, in the other three movies, when he is starting the chant does he not need the amulet to transfer his soul out of the doll into someone else, but in this movie, he needs to use it if he wants to return to his own body?

Answer: There's two possible explanations. First, and the most likely, is that this is simply what's referred to as a "retcon." (Short for "Retroactive Continuity") A term to describe new information/rules/backstory/etc. that are introduced in order to alter the path of a story, or impose new ideas into a narrative. In this case, the series creator and writer Don Mancini needed a reason for the characters to go on a road-trip, hence he created this new idea for an amulet that Chucky need to obtain. And basically, Mancini himself has admitted that he will often change the rules for the series as needed from film to film based on the story he wants to tell, which makes this the more plausible explanation. The second possible explanation is that you could argue that the amulet will allow Chucky to transfer his soul regardless of how long he's been in the doll's body, surpassing the time limit imposed in previous films. But in all seriousness, the former is the more likely explanation. They just needed a new story-element to justify the road-trip aspect of the story.

TedStixon

Both answers work for me. Thank you.

Question: Is there anything Dewey could have done to change the switch other than getting out of the cab?

Answer: No.

Question: How did Verona know Carl and why did she cry out his name after going after the decoy carriage with the stake bomb?

Answer: There is a lot of backstory to the Van Helsing film, because they intended to do sequels and prequels (if this film was successful, which was not the case). Carl was a well-known agent for the Vatican who supplied Van Helsing with numerous and ingenious weapons for fighting werewolves, vampires, et cetera. When Verona screams Carl's name, she's acknowledging that Carl bested her.

Charles Austin Miller

If Van Helsing was James Bond, then Carl would be "Q"; Carl created the devices and tricks that made Van Helsing physically invincible.

Charles Austin Miller

I just watched that clip because I didn't know she said his name but I'm pretty sure she says "no" not "Carl".

Answer: It appears to be just baked beans, likely without meat or spices. Nuns will often eat a very bland diet, especially a poor order dedicated to contemplation.

Answer: It looked to me like a stew of some sort.

Michael Albert

Folks, the food is visible. It's literally just beans.

Answer: Possibly gruel.

Alan Keddie

As I said above, the food is visible and there is no ambiguity. It's literally just beans.

Question: When Matt bounces, and Ryan doesn't bounce, they make the rope snap. Aren't tether ropes very difficult to snap in real life?

Answer: Space tethers (both synthetic fiber and metallic cable) are incredibly strong and can withstand hundreds of pounds of force. Like everything else in "Gravity," the tether snapping is pure fiction.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: How was Stanley Kubrick able to ensure that Danny Lloyd never found out that he was really in a horror movie? In the scene when Wendy accuses Jack of hurting Danny, she holds onto Danny and calls Jack a "son of a bitch." And what about when Danny sees the twin sisters? He looked terrified after seeing them.

Answer: Obviously, Danny Lloyd did eventually learn that "The Shining" was a horror film. During production, however, Stanley Kubrick only told Danny that the movie was a drama about a family living in a hotel. The single shot with Danny and the twin sisters in the corridor never showed anything particularly horrifying; Danny was simply looking straight into the camera and reacting to Kubrick's instructions.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: What is the white drink the bartender makes on the train?

Answer: It looks like a frozen daiquiri, a drink made with rum, lime juice, light syrup, and ice that is mixed in a blender to make it slushy.

raywest

Answer: Orders a Malt just after Mary orders a lemonade.

Answer: Vanilla-rum malted milkshake.

Answer: Definitely not a daiquiri. This looks like a shaken drink. Blended daiquiris were not a thing in the 50s.

The frozen daiquiri was invented sometime between the late 1920s and early 1930s by a Cuban bartender in Havana, using shaved ice and an electric blender. It was a favorite of Ernest Hemingway and became popular in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, along with other tropical cocktails. Cuba and Cuban culture were fashionable during this era, at least until the Communist takeover. To clarify: the foursome have various beverages on their table (coffee, lemonade, a malted milkshake, and two other drinks). In the foreground, the bartender is pouring the slushy white drink mixture into four cocktail glasses sitting on the bar. That is when they sing, "Snow," and is what looks like frozen daiquiris. The scene is on YouTube.

raywest

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