confused about one thing

He said that he didn't have time to look at most of the tapes. I think he saw it for the first time when Carly played it. If he had known, he probably would have reported it or tried to blackmail Jack. Then again, maybe he couldn't report it, because he would have incriminated himself for spying on people.

In the original ending, Zeke was the killer. They changed it to Jack, which does not make much sense. Afterall, surely he would have checked the tape after Naomi Singer died. However, he acts surprised when he sees the tape.

Personally, I think Zeke had known all along who the murderer was, but didn't say anything because the police would probably want to know how he knew.

There have been a lot of comments on here about how many plot holes there are in the film, and how the ending sucks. This is basically because the filmmakers got into a huge battle with the MPAA over the film's content, and after they removed the objectionable material so much of the plot was left in shambles that they had to undertake massive reshoots. These reshoots actually changed the killer's identity. I think I also once heard something about a test audience reacting unfavorably towards the original volcano ending, but I'm not sure if that sequence was ever screened for test audiences. Who knows? The movie definitely has problems, but so did Ira Levin's original novel.

Most plot holes can be attributed to what a few posters have mentioned in their responses. The original ending with zeke unveiled as the killer was tested for audiences, they received negative feedback, the studio suits overreacted, and eszterhaus went back and re-wrote apparently 5 different endings. though they did some minor re-shoots, since they completely changed the ending (the novelist played by tom berenger does not exist in the original book, and was originally only added as a red herring to this film) much of what came before (the setup of a good thriller) was rendered illogical and created plot holes where none previously existed. Too bad they overeacted and changed the ending. Anyone know if the 5 possible endings created by eszterhaus exist anywhere?

I don't think the mpaa can be blamed for this one.

I don't think he knew. His reaction was to be read two ways until we saw the killer:

1) He was the killer and was nervous about being exposed (in which case, wouldn't he have grabbed the gun while Carly fiddled with the zoom? No matter...)

2) He was genuinely curious about this tape.

This is classic Esterhas ambiguity. Too bad this movie was utterly awful in its closing scenes, one of the worst endings to a film I can remember.

"There is no inner peace. There is only nervousness and death." - Fran Lebowitz