Cryptic Quiz Answers 2019

Cryptic Quiz Answers 2019

It’s that time of year when I reveal the answers to my Festive Cryptic Movie Quiz once again... so all of you who were playing can kick yourselves. Unusually this year, nobody got everything right but there was a clear winner with @matthematically who is someone from my Twitter timeline, scoring an impressive 14 out of 16. The two he didn’t figure out were numbers 1 and 8... which everyone had trouble with, to be fair.

So big congratulations to him and here are the ‘workings’ to this year’s answers revealed.

1. No identification... but it’s only half that you’re in.
Well another way of saying a half is ‘SEMI’. If you’re in it then that’s ‘INSEMI’ and then no identification could be abbreviated to ‘NO ID’. Put it all together and you have Norman J. Warren’s classic sci-fi horror INSEMINOID.

2. It’s dark but it’s all there.
If it’s dark then it’s possibly BLACK. If it’s all there (and not just, say, a half) then it’s WHOLE. Scrumble it all up into a film title and you have Walt Disney’s THE BLACK HOLE.

3. Back in the morning.
Well morning could be expressed as AM. Read it backwards and that’s MA.

4. MD peels back.
Similarly... MD is an abbreviation of Medical Doctor, so just keep the DOCTOR. Peels read backwards is SLEEP. So we have DOCTOR SLEEP.

5. They’re not in stereo.
If it’s not in stereo then it’s in MONO and if it's 'they're' it implies it’s plural so you get the movie MONOS.

6. Palindromic lady assassin.
So a movie title which is the name of the assassin character which is a palindrome... aka, it reads the same both ways... and we get Luc Besson’s ANNA.

7. Two days before tomorrow.
Well, yeah, that’s just simple maths. The day before tomorrow is today so the day before that would be YESTERDAY.

8. The absence of violent bloodshed.
Violent bloodshed could be considered GORE. When it’s absent it’s probably GONE. Put it together and you get Hammer Horror THE GORGON.

9. The ‘not very polite’ bee.
Something not very polite is RUDE (except spell it differently). A bee is literally just a B in front of it. So you get David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD.

10. His life lived backwards.
Lived read backwards is DEVIL.

11. Cannibal serial killer is promoted to the rank of colonel.
A cannibal serial killer could be Hannibal LECTER (spell it imaginatively folks). The rank of Colonel is often seen abbreviated to COL. Put it together and you have THE COLLECTOR.

12. He slipped into the trademark.
Trademark is TM. Slip HE into the middle of it and you get everybody’s favourite giant ant movie THEM!

13. The Sun God raises his hand at the auction.
A Sun God could be the Egyptian RA. What do you do at an auction? You BID for things. Put it together and you get David Cronenberg’s... or The Soska Sister’s... RABID.

14. Ellie isn’t around as this pachyderm takes over from Peter Lorre as a Fritz Lang serial killer.
A pachyderm could be an ELEPHANT. Take ELLIE or ELE out and you’re just left with PHANT. If it replaces Peter Lorre in the title role of the serial killer in Fritz Lang’s M, you get AS M. So Don Coscarelli’s classic horror film PHANTASM.

15. A file mix up ascends.
Scramble up the letters of FILE and you get LIFE. If it ascends then it must get HIGH. So HIGH LIFE.

16. Plus a scrambled, heavenly body that appears as a fixed, luminous point in the sky.
Plus could be expressed mathematically as ADD... but knock it down to AD. A heavenly body could be a STAR... but scramble it up to STRA. So you ‘add a stra’ and get AD ASTRA.

So there you have it. I hope some of you (preferably all of you) had fun trying to solve some of these and maybe I’ll do another next year if I get enough good feedback. Thank you for playing/reading.