Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz 2023 Answers

Annual Cryptic
Movie Quiz 2023
The Answers

Thanks once again to all who braved my annual cryptic movie quiz over the Christmas and New Year period... I hope you got a lot of fun out of it. This year’s winner is, embarrassingly for the third year running, Steve Braham in Australia, who got all 14 answers correct.

The answers are pictured above in the grid and this is how you break them down to solve them.

1. Somebody visually recorded Italy’s capital city.
When someone visually records someone these days we usually say ‘videod’. Italy’s capital city is Rome. So... Cronenberg classic Videodrome.

2. 16th Century firearm demonstrating one more organ of auditory processing than the average human.
The firearm is a musket. An organ of auditory processing is an ear, of which humans have two... so one more ear would make three. So... The Three Musketeers.

3. The monster maker swore at his creation.
Swearing is sometimes called cursing so... Hammer classic The Curse Of Frankenstein.

4. Using oars to steer the author of Delta Of Venus towards the shore.
Using oars to stear is when you Row something. The author of Delta Of Venus was Anaïs Nin. So... Row Nin... Ronin.

5. It got kinda scrambled by the hello.
Hello with By scrambled into it gives you... Hellboy.

6. If the four lettered town in Switzerland started and ended with the same two letters.
The town I’m thinking of is Chur. So put the first two letters at the end again and you get church so... Italian horror movie The Church.

7. Enthusiastically expelled breath on a device manufactured to give out light.
Enthusiastically expel breath is blow. Past tense, expelled, changes it to Blew. A device manufactured to give out light could be lamp. So... Blew Lamp... The Blue Lamp.

8. Auditory organ sandwiched in a backwards, long playing record album.
And ear again. A long playing record was always referred to as an LP. LP backwards is PL... put EAR between the two letters and you get last year’s slasher prequel Pearl.

9. The cannibal ate his girlfriend. He was...
A classic Ridley Scott film. The cannibal ate his girlfriend. He was “glad he ate her” so... Gladiator.

10. What you get if a Pokémon goes down with a nasty skin condition... from a certain point of view.
Well it could get a rash. Combine it with a famous tale about contradictory viewpoints and you get Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

11. Family tribe of the light coloured James Bond car in The Spy Who Loved Me.
A family tribe is a clan. The car James Bond drives in The Spy Who Loved Me is, famously, a white Lotus Esprit so, put that all together and you get Shaw Brothers classic The Clan Of The White Lotus.

12. “Oh, Mr. Neeson!” called John Thaw’s Detective Inspector.
Morse is the Inspector. Liam is the Neeson. Calling him as above is Oh, Liam. So, Morse Oh Liam... 80s horror movie Mausoleum.

13. Daniel goes for a walk next to The Bridge On The River.
The famous River Kwai, of course. Dan is short for Daniel so the answer is... Kwaidan.

14. This version of the International Space Station is powered entirely by the sun.
Something powered by the sun uses Solar power. The International Space Station is ISS. So it must be... Solaris.

And, of course, give yourself an extra point if you figured out the background to the grid was from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. Thanks to all who played... I hope you had fun.