Terrific Taglines 2: The Sequel! Quiz

Answer: Psycho

The 'shower', of course, referred to one of the iconic film moments in history--Janet Leigh's (Anne Heche's, in the remake) murder at the Bates Motel while she was washing off the road dust, by a shadowy figure with a big knife. The '98 remake, by Gus Van Sant, was a shot-for-shot recreation of Alfred Hitchcock's original masterpiece, with Vince Vaughn replacing Tony Perkins as Norman Bates.

It was savaged by the critics, but broke even at the box office.

Answer: Superman: The Movie

At the time, "Superman" had amazing special effects, utilizing blue-screen and other modern technologies alongside amazingly realistic models (the Golden Gate Bridge replica was 70 feet long and 20 feet wide), and the flying scenes were unlike anything audiences had ever seen: actor Christopher Reeve did much of his own wirework for the film, which was fairly risky in the days before computers controlled the wire riggings.

Answer: Gremlins

If you got a mogwai (the cute little form of the gremlins) wet, it spawned more mogwai. If you exposed it to bright light, it melted and died horribly. And if you fed it after midnight it turned into a scaly monstrosity that would drive a snowplow through your house and send you flying through a second-story window. "Gremlins" made $150 million in release, after costing $11 million to make, meaning that it was a monster success.

Answer: The Hunt for Red October

The 'Red October' ('Krasniy Oktyabr') was a revolutionary new Soviet submarine equipped with a 'caterpillar drive', making it virtually undetectable by NATO or American navies. Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) stole the sub from his country and attempted to flee to America, bringing it with him as a prize to help buy his freedom in a new country.

The film was a hit, though critics complained that nothing much happened and that the movie was murky and hard to watch.

Answer: Alien

Ridley Scott's "Alien" (with a script by Dan O'Bannon and creature design by H.R. Giger) was the story of the crew of a commercial towing spaceship and their deadly struggles with a hitchhiker they picked up when they got a distress signal from a nearby planet. It was a huge blockbuster, winning awards and ending up being the second-highest-grossing movie of the year (behind "Kramer Vs. Kramer"). As of 2009, five sequels had been released.

The tagline referred to the fact that sound cannot travel through a vacuum. When "Alien 3" was still in the preliminary stages, a proposed tagline for that movie was "On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream", but after several script changes it would have made no sense at all.

Answer: Deliverance

In "Deliverance", Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox decided to spend a weekend canoeing down the Cahulawassee River before the river disappears under a flood that will be released when a dam will be destroyed. They mixed it up with some very, very disturbing locals over the course of the weekend, and their lives were changed for the worse (those who survived, anyway). James Dickey wrote the novel and had a small part in the movie.

From the film's trailer: "These are the men. Nothing very unusual about them. Suburban guys like you or your neighbor. Nothing very unusual about them until they decided to spend one weekend canoeing down the Cahulawassee River. Ed Gentry - he runs an art service, his wife Martha has a boy Dean. Lewis Medlock has real estate interests, talks about resettling in New Zealand or Uruguay. Drew Ballinger - he's sales supervisor for a soft drink company. Bobby Trippe - bachelor, insurance and mutual funds. These are the men who decided not to play golf that weekend. Instead, they sought the river."

Answer: Groundhog Day

The conceit of "Groundhog Day" was that television weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray), an unpleasant fellow, must live Groundhog Day repeatedly, while stuck in Punxsutawney for the festival. He took advantage of the repetition at first (he remembered what happened the day before, the townspeople didn't), but eventually became suicidal (and couldn't kill himself). Eventually, though, he decided to use the opportunity to become a better person.

Answer: The Blues Brothers

Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd), two musicians on the run from the police, the Illinois Nazi Party, one seriously angry ex-girlfriend and a country band named the Good Ol' Boys, were on a mission to raise enough money to save the orphanage they grew up in from the wrecking ball. Early in the movie, the brothers attended church at an evangelical service run by James Brown, and a heavenly beam of light struck them. From that point on, Elwood knew that they were "on a mission from God".

The film has become a cult favorite over the years.

Answer: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

A close encounter of the first kind is a UFO sighting. The second kind is observation in addition to some physical effects (electrical interference, animals panicking, damage to the ground). The third kind is, of course, contact with aliens--as Richard Dreyfuss discovered in this Spielberg film that scored nine Oscar nominations and made almost $300 million dollars. "We Are Not Alone"--indeed, according to this film, we share the universe with little aliens who look a bit like albino Gumbies.

Answer: Transformers

"Transformers" told the story of two battling bands of extraterrestrial, shape-changing robots (the Autobots and the Decepticons) whose war spilled over to Earth. The MacGuffin for this movie is the ominous All Spark, which would, in the wrong hands, spell an end to human civilization (and to the burgeoning romance between the characters played by Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf). Director Michael Bay released a sequel in 2009 ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen") in his perpetual quest for world domination.