Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 171 Trivia Quiz

Answer: "The Headless Ghost" (1959)

Ambrose Castle is haunted by a headless ghost. The decedent was deprived of his head 600 years before and was cursed to wander the castle until his head and torso were reunited. There is a secret chamber in the castle in which a pouch of ashes is hidden. If these ashes are thrown onto the portrait of the ghost in life (pre-beheading) while the reciter recites this incantation, the curse will be broken, the head will be rejoined, and the haunting ended.

Answer: The Eye Eaters Feast

The feature-length movies "The Beast with a Million Eyes" (1955), "The Crawling Eye" (1958), and "The Cyclops" (1957) are all actual, unimaginary, existent, and authentic motion pictures. The Eye Eaters studio in Chicago is responsible for some notable visual storytelling projects.

There is a species of giant green worms called Eye Eaters in the Canadian animated television series "SlugTerra" (2012-2016). Almost everyone knows the phrase "feast your eyes"; much less common is a feast of eyes. In "World of Warcraft", there is a spell in which birds of prey descend and make a feast of victims' eyes. On their album "White Side of Night" (1983), the Irish band Scullion cut a track titled "Feast of Eyes". No one appears to have made a feature-length movie in the 1950s called "The Eye Eaters Feast".

Answer: motile ravenous carnivorous plants

In one scene in "Voodoo Island", Claire Winter, played by Jean Engstrom, wanders off from camp to sketch. As it is a warm day, she strips off to go swimming in a lagoon with a waterfall. A plant with long tentacles senses her presence, wraps its cannular leaves around her, and constricts her until she dies.

Her screams attract the others but they find her deceased. Phillip Knight, played by Boris Karloff, says, "Carnivorous plants! Throwbacks to the Palaeocene epoch, nearly fifteen million years ago." Barney Finch, played by Murvyn Vye, is attacked by a terrestrial man-eating plant but escapes.

In terrified flight, he comes upon a clearing where two young native girls are playing. The smaller of the two falls into the foliage of a motile plant which envelopes and suffocates her before consuming her.

Answer: Les Tremayne

General Mann musters all of the weaponry available in California and deploys it against the Martian invasion. Nothing is effective. A frustrated Major General, played by Les Tremayne, says "I'd say our effective losses were nearly sixty percent men, ninety percent materiel. Well, the jets went in, but not one of them came out. I watched high-level bombers drop everything they carried ..

They were knocked out of the sky and their bombs did nothing. Nothing was effective against them."

Answer: The Creeping Unknown

The success of the 1953 BBC television series "The Quatermass Experiment" prompted Hammer Films to make an offer for film rights two days after the broadcast of the last episode. Potential investors were reluctant to buy the rights because there was widespread belief that the British Board of Film Censors would rate the movie X keeping people under 17 out of the theatre. Hammer set out to deliberately get the film rated X. Upon success, Hammer changed the script's name to "The Quatermass Xperiment" to tout the X-rating.

The Quatermass character meant nothing to American audiences (who did not watch British television), nor did the film's rating in Great Britain. United Artists, the US distributor, changed the name to "The Creeping Unknown." Unfortunately, the United Artists' spliced-in title card misspelt the distributor's name: "United Artist".

Answer: True

In 1965, an amateur student filmmaker, Donald F. Glut, made an unauthorized sequel, starring himself. The three-and-a-half minute black-and-white film was titled "Wrath of the Sun Demon". In 1983, Hadi John Salem and Gregory Steven Brown released a redubbed version of the original.

In 1989, Craig Mitchell produced a re-edited redubbed version of the original variously titled "What's Up, Hideous Sun Demon" and "Revenge of the Sun Demon". It was predicated upon a suntan lotion that worked from the inside out and had a desirable amorous side effect. American science-fiction author Bruce Golden published his novel "Monster Town" in 2017.

When asked about the source of his inspiration, he said he'd written a short story years before titled "I Was a Teenage Hideous Sun Demon" which was a riff on the Sun Demon theme.

Answer: "Facing the Flag" by Jules Verne

Karel Zeman was attracted to the works of Jules Verne from his youth. Four of his movies made between 1955 and 1970 were based on Verne's stories. The second of these was "Vynález zkázy" based (primarily) on Verne's novel "Facing the Flag" (1896). It also included themes from other Verne works.

The movie uses original Victorian line engravings which illustrated "Facing the Flag" as background for live action.

Answer: acting

American film and television actress Joan Taylor (1929-2012) came from a very theatrical family: her father was a studio prop man in Hollywood and then managed a motion picture theatre; her mother was a singer and dancer in vaudeville. She played the recurring role of Milly Scott on television's "The Rifleman" (1960-1962).

Her film credits include "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956) as Carol Marvin and "20 Million Miles to Earth" (1957) as Marisa Leonardo.

Answer: near Haiti

Ricky's grandfather reputedly buried a million-dollar gold treasure on "an island near Haiti". She travels from Pennsylvania to the Caribbean to find it. She goes to a port called San Pedro where she charters a sailboat to take her to Serpent Island. The script is not particularly concerned with geography. Most of the filming took place in Haiti which was then an inexpensive place to make a movie.

Answer: Edward G. Robinson

Big-band musician Stan Grayson can't decide whether he committed a murder or dreamt that he stabbed a man to death. He confides in his brother-in-law Rene Bressard, who is a New Orleans police detective, played by Edward G. Robinson. Bressard first dismisses the idea, then suspects Grayson and finally works to prove that his brother-in-law committed the crime but while under the influence of an irresistible hypnotic suggestion.