Top 10 Background Details You Missed in Murder Mysteries
You'd have to be a master detective to catch these murder mystery details. For this list, we’ll be looking at the craziest and most clever undercover details, easter eggs, or pieces of evidence in the murder mystery genre.
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00:00 "We had photo reference of all that clothing from evidence, so that's exactly what he was wearing."
00:05 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 background details you missed in murder mysteries.
00:12 "I've got to say, the world's greatest detective? I thought she'd be better at this."
00:17 For this list, we're looking at the craziest and most clever undercover details, Easter eggs, or pieces of evidence in the murder mystery genre.
00:24 We're literally revealing the killer's identity in a lot of these movies, so we have never been more serious about a spoiler alert.
00:32 Which of these murder mysteries had you totally fooled? Sound off in the comments.
00:36 Brian De Palma's erotic thriller was controversial for its frank depictions of sex, brutal violence against women, and transphobic twist.
00:48 "I, uh, I thought Ellie just put on a dress."
00:50 "No, he did. And a wig, too."
00:52 However, it's hard to deny how well-crafted some of its suspense sequences are.
00:56 One scene finds actress Angie Dickinson engaging in a sexy cat-and-mouse game with a strange man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
01:03 [Music]
01:10 It's full of background details you might not see until a rewatch.
01:13 Near the end of the sequence, we actually catch a couple of glimpses of the blonde killer in a trench coat and sunglasses.
01:19 But the first time, though, a viewer might not even notice her.
01:23 [Shouting]
01:27 Number 9. Everything makes sense the second time.
01:31 Shutter Island.
01:32 Teddy Daniels and Chuck Alls start out as two U.S. Marshals ostensibly heading to a secluded mental hospital to investigate the disappearance of a patient.
01:40 But the twist ending reveals that Teddy is actually a patient, and Chuck is a doctor who simulated the whole thing to try to break Teddy from his delusions.
01:49 "You working for him?"
01:51 "I'm sorry, there wasn't any other way. Someone had to stick with you, keep you safe."
01:55 Throughout the story, Chuck makes gestures to the staff and patients that seem out of place.
02:00 However, these are usually in moments when Teddy is agitated, so our focus is on him.
02:05 "You know a patient named Andrew Leydas? Do you? No! No!"
02:10 Chuck's attempts to throw Teddy off by spouting conspiracy theories are filled with even more meaning.
02:16 The impressive subtleties of actor Mark Ruffalo make him the one to watch on repeat viewing.
02:22 "The noise give you anything on a layout?"
02:24 "Not really. All I remember is people screaming day and night, no windows, and I didn't buy a second."
02:31 Number 8. Black lingerie or white lingerie?
02:34 Psycho.
02:35 Alfred Hitchcock was famously meticulous.
02:38 Apparently, his attention to detail also extended to his character's undergarments.
02:43 His most iconic film starts out like a noir mystery.
02:46 "Is anything wrong?"
02:47 "Of course not. Am I acting as if there's something wrong?"
02:52 A good woman gone bad, Marion Crane steals a great sum of money and hightails it out of town.
02:58 The movie's costume designer Rita Riggs said Hitchcock was a moralist with a sense of humor.
03:03 "I think he is a humorous moralist."
03:06 So, he was very particular that Marion should wear a white bra before she stole the money
03:11 and a black one after.
03:12 "And then of course when we saw her again, it was a black bra. So he got the best of both worlds."
03:19 It doesn't sound that subtle when you explain it, but it goes a long way on screen.
03:23 Number 7. Faithful reconstruction, Zodiac.
03:27 David Fincher and company went to great lengths to be faithful to the true story of the infamous
03:31 Zodiac killer. As the story takes place in the late 1960s and 70s,
03:36 visually establishing the period was critical.
03:39 "Like for example, Paul Avery, a lot of his reference comes from my dad
03:43 and the way he dressed in the early to mid 70s.
03:45 I took a lot of that stuff that seemed kind of appropriate."
03:48 The look of the movie is very authentic.
03:50 That is due in large part to the extra mile taken by the movie's costume designer Casey Storm.
03:55 "Darlene Farrin, the first murder victim in the film,
03:59 the outfit that she's wearing in the film is the outfit that she was killed in."
04:03 Using forensic evidence and crime scene photos the crew was given special access to,
04:07 Storm was able to put an extreme level of accurate detail into the costumes.
04:12 What ends up on screen is an almost one-to-one recreation of the character's wardrobe.
04:17 "It's July, how many shirts are you wearing?"
04:20 "I'm cold."
04:21 "You're cold on the 4th of July."
04:23 Number 6. Killer in the crowd, Copycat.
04:26 In the first scene of this mystery thriller starring Sigourney Weaver,
04:30 she is addressing a crowd of students on the likelihood of a serial killer sitting among them.
04:34 "Now Kenny, can you turn that light on for us please so we can get a good look at these guys?"
04:40 On re-watch, viewers might realize just how true that is.
04:43 The movie's antagonist, Peter Foley,
04:46 can be spotted standing among the potential serial killers in the crowd.
04:49 This is long before the audience has seen him in action, so he doesn't even register.
04:54 He is just as Weaver's character describes.
04:57 "They held down jobs, they made decent neighbors, their victims trusted them."
05:02 Good-looking, unassuming, and unremarkable.
05:05 Yet the detail only adds to the character's sense of paranoia and obsession with patterns.
05:10 "Alright guys, you better sit down, you're scaring me."
05:12 Number 5. The Zoom Call, Glass Onion, A Knives Out Mystery.
05:19 "I don't understand this at all. So Angie caught me, and now the game's just over?"
05:24 "Sorry Blanc, you're thrown out of the airlock, it's a no-brainer."
05:27 No one missed that Detective Benoit Blanc was playing among us with Stephen Sondheim,
05:31 Angela Lansbury, Natasha Lyonne, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
05:35 What you might not have put together so quickly was why these four people were chosen for cameos.
05:40 Abdul-Jabbar has written several murder mystery books about Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother.
05:45 Lyonne later starred in Johnson's own murder mystery TV show, Poker Face,
05:49 and Angela Lansbury was of course the face of murder she wrote.
05:53 Perhaps the most subversive cameo is Broadway legend Sondheim.
05:57 You may remember Blanc singing one of his songs in the previous movie.
06:01 "The thought of you stays bright. Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor."
06:12 But it makes even more sense when you realize that Glass Onion
06:15 borrows a lot plot-wise from a mystery movie Sondheim co-wrote.
06:19 Number 4. The Picture, The Last of Sheila.
06:23 "Here are all the known photographs of the brutal shoplifter who has terrified
06:27 the sniveling merchants of the Riviera for the past 20 years."
06:30 This undersung 70s murder mystery was based on the real-life mystery games
06:34 composer Stephen Sondheim would throw with actor Anthony Perkins for their famous friends.
06:39 The Last of Sheila follows a group of Hollywood friends who know way
06:42 too much about each other and play catty mystery games for fun.
06:45 "I'm trying to hold on to a husband."
06:47 "She's trying to hold on with your money."
06:50 It plays out like a game for the audience,
06:52 presenting evidence and clues for the characters and the viewer at once.
06:56 Repeat viewings reveal more details each time,
06:59 but the ingenious solution has been hidden in plain sight the whole time.
07:03 A picture of the characters taken at the beginning of the film,
07:06 with each standing under a letter in the ship's name,
07:09 turns out to be the key to the whole mystery.
07:11 "Wheeze in closer, you'll be out of the picture. And I don't mean this one."
07:15 Number 3. In the Mirror, Deep Red.
07:19 "You remember the other night, the night of the murder?"
07:21 "Yeah."
07:22 "Well, I said, I thought I'd seen a painting,
07:26 but a few minutes later it was no longer there. You remember?"
07:29 Dario Argento's classic Jallo film gives away the entire mystery in the first 20 minutes,
07:34 if you know where to look.
07:35 The director's affinity for gliding point of view shots and jagged editing
07:39 can be destabilizing for a new viewer.
07:42 "It upset me, but it's all right now."
07:45 When the main character finds the first victim's body,
07:50 he passes a mirror in a side hallway containing several paintings.
07:54 Marcus only realizes sometime later that one of these paintings
07:57 was actually a reflection of the killer,
07:59 framed in a way to make it seem she's part of a painting.
08:02 "What I saw was a reflection in a mirror. I saw the face of the murderer."
08:09 Argento would revisit this kind of twist in later films,
08:12 but this one remains the most shocking.
08:15 Number 2. Free Association. The Usual Suspects.
08:19 "First thing I learned on the job, you know what it was? How to spot a murderer."
08:23 After a deadly shootout on a pier,
08:25 police detectives work to reconstruct the events that led up to the mass killing.
08:29 They interrogate their key witness, a man identified as Roger Verbal-Kint,
08:34 who leads them through a complicated narrative of the criminal activities that led to the event.
08:39 "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
08:45 The US Customs agent responsible for the investigation realizes too late
08:48 that not only is Kint the man responsible,
08:51 but his false story was filled with details located all around the room.
08:55 Even the brand name on the agent's coffee cup somehow makes it into Verbal's tall tale.
09:00 "Tell me every last detail."
09:02 "I work for Kaiser so they'll convince me."
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09:18 Number 1. Who's missing?
09:22 Clue
09:23 This cult classic is famous for having three different endings.
09:26 Clues to all three solutions are laid throughout the movie,
09:30 which makes it hilariously convoluted.
09:32 "Anyway, we all revealed we'd all received a letter,
09:34 and you'd had a letter, and you'd had a letter, and you'd had a letter."
09:36 The biggest and easiest to miss clue is that
09:40 certain characters seem to disappear in big crowd scenes.
09:44 For example, Mrs. Peacock is absent during the scene
09:46 where they all go and check on the matey vet.
09:48 According to at least two of the endings,
09:50 this turns out to be the moment when she was busy murdering the cook in the kitchen.
09:54 "You were the person who was missing when the cook and Mr. Boddy were murdered,
09:57 and the cook used to be your cook."
09:59 Of course, according to one solution, this is kind of impossible.
10:03 The logic is not exactly airtight, but it is so much fun all the same.
10:07 "For she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow,
10:12 for she's a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny."
10:18 Do you agree with our picks?
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10:26 [Music]