Scream (1996) - 63 mistakes

Audio problem: When Sidney comes running to the house and she sees Dewey come out with the knife in his back she screams "Dewey!" but her mouth says "no!"

Revealing: As Drew Barrymore is running from the killer outside he stabs her.  If you look closely it is very easy to tell it is a rubber knife, because you see it bend off of her.

Continuity: When Ghostface is trying to kill Tatum in the garage, she tries to go through the doggie door. From the outside shot, she is out of the door from her arms and up. From the inside shot, she is out of the door from her hips and up.

Deliberate "mistake": When Randy is explaining the "rules" and he is standing beside the television the batteries fall out of the remote yet he still manages to change the TV over.

Audio problem: When Gale is talking to Kenny the cameraman before she goes off to investigate the abandoned car with Dewey her face is in a close up. She can be clearly heard uttering the forbidden phrase "I'll be right back." However her mouth can clearly be seen saying "keep watching."

Continuity: After Sidney has been attacked and is in her room.  Billy climbs through the open window. It is completely open. After he drops his mobile phone, the window is only half open.

Continuity: As Gale is talking to Dewey outside the school, when she is trying to get information from him about the killings, Dewey takes his sunglasses off and hangs them on his shirt. In the following scene they hang two different ways every time the camera cuts to him.

Continuity: When Henry Winkler opens his door to look for the "kids" that keep knocking, you can see red writing on the wall opposite. When he comes back in from checking out the hallways, that writing is gone.

Revealing: When the killer surprises Syd after she's come in from outside and locked the door, he tries to stab her with his left hand, misses, and hits the door right next to the chain in closeup. In wide shot (very quick shot) when Syd legs it, look at the killer and you can see he's holding a very badly bent knife in his right hand, nowhere near the chain.

Continuity: After the curfew has taken effect, Dewey and his Sergeant are standing on a sidewalk in town.  The Sergeant is smoking a cigarette.  In one scene, the cigarette is almost gone, then he drops it and he steps on it, but it's almost an entire cigarette.

Revealing: When Sidney and Stu are fighting in the living room and they both trip over the couch, Stu's stunt double is visible and wearing a wig.

Continuity: At the very end, when Sid finds out who the killers are, they are all standing in the kitchen. When Billy and Stu stab each other take a look at the blood stain on the left side of Stu's jumper. It starts around his shoulder and vertically goes down towards his waist. When Sid is fighting him in the lounge she gets up and goes behind the TV. In the shot looking straight down on Stu from a birds eye view, notice the blood stain is now horizontally across his stomach. You'll have to look closely for this one.

Audio problem: When Gale starts driving away after she hits Randy with the phone, Kenny's body falls on her windshield. At this part the camera pans to a shot overhead and Gale says "Kenny, I'm sorry, but get off my f***ing windshield!". Her mouth is not moving as she says this.

Continuity: When Stu & Billy are in the kitchen after Sydney has escaped them, she calls Stu's house phone. Billy gets pissed and throws the receiver at Stu. It bounces off him and lands on the floor, yet when Stu picks up the receiver to talk to Sydney, it's on the table.

Continuity: Casey's lipstick changes colour throughout the scene.

Continuity: At the beginning of the film, Casey is cooking popcorn on the stove. When she peels the top off, you see her peel the side away from the handle, and she's using her left hand, but when the shot changes, she's using her right hand, and is pulling from the other side.

Continuity: At the end of the movie when Stu and Sidney begin tumbling (right before he gets killed) there is a bench in the background with a bag of ruffle potato chips facing upwards, in the next shot it is lying down.

Revealing: When Stu, Randy and the rest are talking about breasts, Stu looks down a girl's shirt. The girl smacks his shoulder and kind of grins at the camera, as if it wasn't supposed to happen.

Audio problem: When Tatum throws the first beer bottle at the killer, she yells out, "F***er," but her mouth doesn't move.

Continuity: When the whole gang is watching Halloween, they see the scene in which Michael Myers impales a victim with a knife, which suspends him from the wall. Just before Randy pauses the movie, Michael Myers is standing and admiring his handiwork. When Randy pauses it, the frame is of Michael Myers raising the knife, which of course, happened 10-15 seconds ago.

Visible crew/equipment: There is camera equipment reflected in the door window when leaving the police station.

Continuity: When Casey is making popcorn, firstly the top of the popcorn that she tears off and places next to the stove changes from being folded in half, to later on laying down flat. Secondly Casey picks up a salt shaker and places it by the stove, but this later disappears.

Continuity: When the killer and Sydney are fighting by the front door, the killer takes the knife and is ready to stab Sydney. Then Sydney kicks him, and he goes flying, then watch as it goes to a wide. He is now much higher in the air than he was a moment ago.

Factual error: Gale Weathers points the gun at Billy and tries to shoot him, but the trigger doesn't pull back. This is explained by Billy when he says that the safety was on. Fine. But that gun is a Beretta 92F, and on a Beretta 92F when the safety is on, the trigger WILL pull back, but no round will fire.

Continuity: When Stu puts the voice box and phone in Sidney's dad's jacket pocket and lets him fall, when he hits the ground the voice box partly falls out, but then when they show the dad again the voice box is tucked back in.

Revealing: When Sidney sticks her finger in the wound made when Sidney stabbed Billy with the umbrella, Skeet Ulriches skin pad visibly does not connect with his neck.

Continuity: In the beginning of the movie when Casey and the killer are on the phone, she locks the front door and says "I am two seconds away from calling the police." If you look at the door while she is locking it, you will see that there are three glass windows at the top. When the killer rings the doorbell, it shows the door and it now has nine glass windows.

Visible crew/equipment: When Sidney is calling out "Dewey, Dewey where are you?" when alone outside, you can see the reflection of someone in a white jacket walking past Dewey's police car.

Factual error: During the scene where the group of friends is watching Halloween, one boy says something like "Why do they do that? The blood is all wrong. It's too red.". The problem is, during that part of the movie, no blood is shown or even implied. Bob is just pinned against the wall.

Other: When Casey's parents hear her on the phone, the scene shows just the killer with the knife pointing down. When he stabs her the knife quickly moves backwards in the opposite direction.

Continuity: When Sidney and Tatum arrive at Stu's party, they are dropped off by Dewey. Then the two girls walk to Stu's house. The bags Tatum is carrying are switched when they are walking inside the house (when she says "Catering is here").

Continuity: When Sidney goes back into Stu's house after the killer tried to catch her in Dewey's car, she takes the gun out of Dewey's holster. The ends of her hair are wet with blood. But after she discovers that Billy is still alive after being stabbed, she goes over to him to help him up. The ends of her hair are completely dry.

Continuity: When Sydney is talking to Tatum and Stu by the lockers, the combination locks she's standing by are black in a closeup, but when a student runs past in a scream costume, she is by lockers with a pink and a turquoise colour lock.

Continuity: When Randy explains the "Rules" to everyone and mentions the rule of no sex only two guys throw popcorn at him.Also they only throw one piece at a time, yet when Randy says "Big nono, big nono" you can see bucketloads of popcorn flying at him.

Continuity: When all the guys are sat outside of the school talking about who (a male or a female) is the murderer, Tatum's leg is behind Stu's leg. In that same action, we go to a close up and suddenly Tatum's leg is in front of Stu's leg.

Continuity: In the scene where Tatum gets closed in the garage door, the first time it shows her arm hanging down. In the next scene, it shows her arm caught in the door.

Continuity: When the killer sneaks up on Randy, Randy is lying back against the sofa. When Ghostface raises the knife Randy is lying back, relaxed with a tired look on his face. On the delayed footage when the killer raises the knife, Randy leans forward and is practically on the edge of the seat, his mouth and eyes wide open.

Audio problem: When they are having the conversation about Basic Instinct at the fountain after Sidney has been questioned, Randy's lips don't match when he says: "That was an ice pick, not exactly the same thing."

Continuity: At the end when Syd and her father call Stu's house you hear the dad talking but when he bursts out of the closet the duct tape is still tightly around his mouth.

Continuity: In the garage, Tatum slams the fridge door into the killers face, the killer knocks the door with his arm, and it opens fully. But in the next wide shot of the killer getting up, the fridge door is closed.

Continuity: When Casey puts the two videos on top of the TV, she puts them on top of each other so they are placed neatly. Then when she picks up the letter opener off the TV later, the videos are no longer stacked neatly.

Continuity: When Tatum goes into the garage before she gets killed,she goes to get beer. She then walks over to the garage door opener with the beer in her right hand. Her left hand is reaching up to push the button, but as they show the close up, it is her right hand pushing the button.

Continuity: At the party at Stu's house, when Dep. Dewey is walking through the house looking for the killer, Dewey walks into the living room with the TV and couch. Look at the TV, there is a white phone sitting right next to it. Later, when Sydney and Stu are fighting and she is about to push the TV on top of him, the white phone is gone. The TV also appears to be bigger.

Continuity: When Randy answers the phone at the party and learns that Principal Himbry is dead, his face is very close to the top of the TV screen. However, when Gale and Kenny are watching the recording of the phone conversation in the van, Randy's mouth and nose are directly in front of the camera. The camera that Gale placed in the entertainment center when she first got to the party was situated on top of the VCR, which was in turn placed on a shelf below the actual TV; therefore, Randy's mouth and nose should not have been visible on the recording. If anything, only his waist should have been visible.

Continuity: How come everyone including Randy had their jackets on and appeared to be leaving the party and yet Randy was the only one left at the party at the end, before the bloodbath? The answer to this spawns another goof itself: Randy said he'd stay behind to check on Billy and Sydney, which is why he didn't leave. However, the goof is that he didn't actually go upstairs to check at any time, because he'd either have seen them having sex, or else found Billy's body. Of course, another explanation is that we're made to think that Randy must be the killer, because he's the only one who stayed behind. We just don't know.....

Revealing: When they shoot the killer at the end, the hole in his head is there before the gun goes off. You can see the hole in his head for about a frame before the flash of the gun goes off and his head drops. The body is also clearly a dummy. The scene then cuts and they show him being shot again. Once more, the wound is already there.

Visible crew/equipment: Look closely (you may need widescreen to see it) at the railing when Sidney is walking up the stair outside while talking to Tatum. You'll notice a boom shadow.

Deliberate "mistake": When Sidney is typing the message to the police, you can see that there are red lights flashing, which must mean the police are there, 5 seconds after she types. Obviously deliberately done for the humor.

Other: When Sidney is preparing to go to Tatum's house, she brings several items of clothing downstairs, including a pair of boots, which seem to be knee-length from the way she is holding them to her chest. However later when she is dressing after her session of nooky with Billy, the boots have changed to ankle length. [The clothes that Sidney packed were in the house and she never got them since she left the house after she was attacked and besides the day that she made nooky with Billy was a different day then the day she was attacked.]

Continuity: After Courtney Cox runs to the van when she's being chased, she hops into the van and throws it into reverse, guns it, then slams on the brakes, and the body falls down onto the windshield. Slamming on the brakes after going in reverse would cause the body to fall the other way, toward the back of the van.

Continuity: When Randy answers the phone he kneels down putting his head about level with the top of the TV, yet when Sidney goes to drop the TV on Stu's head the TV is much higher.

Continuity: When Sidney and Kenny are watching the tape of the van from inside the party, the scene they are watching, and what actually took place of Randy describing the "rules", there are many differences in what the people say and do.

Continuity: When Sidney and Billy are talking in the bedroom at Stu's house, when the camera is on Billy, Sidney's hair is in a different position than when the camera is on her.

Continuity: At the end when Sidney is in Dewey's police car and the killer is there, she opens the door and falls out but the door is still locked. In some cars you can open the door when it is locked but the lock always pops up after you open the door, and this one didn't.

Continuity: In the opening scene, Drew Barrymore put the Jiffy Pop on and it sizzled right away. In reality, it takes about ten minutes to heat up. And also she should have shaken it when it started sizzling.

Revealing: When the killer first stabs Casey, whilst chasing her outside, you can see that as the killer grabs her, some of Drew Barrymore's real hair fall out from under her wig.

Continuity: When the cameraman is watching the 30 second delay footage and the ghost face is about to kill Randy who is on the sofa, he walks into the room in a different way on the delayed footage to on the actual film footage.

Continuity: When Dewey enters the house where the party was held, calling out for Mr. Prescott and holding his gun, he passes a table with a vase on it. If you look closely, you'll see the table and vase are knocked by someone off-screen twice, Dewey (David Arquette), is nowhere near it.

Continuity: When Drew Barrymore is running to the kitchen after the patio windows break she grabs a knife. When they show her going through the doors from the inside to go outside her knife's curving blade is pointing toward the celling but when the show her leaving the house through the doors from the outside the knife curve blade is pointing down.

Continuity: When the principal comes back into his office after checking out who was knocking on his door you can see a closet in the background with coats in it. When they change the angle the jackets have moved to a different position.

Audio problem: When Steve is on the porch and gagged, the killer instructs Casey to turn off the lights. Steve shakes his head and lets out some muffled 'No's. When the lights go out he says one last 'No' but you can still tell he isn't saying it. Even though his mouth is gagged, he makes no body movements to correlate with his shouts like he did before, especially not his jaw. Despite it being dark you can still tell.

Continuity: Sidney is on the roof trying to escape from the killer and she falls off. When she gets up she sees the dead body of Tatum in the cat door and her left arm must be behind her because you can't see it but this isn't what happened when you saw her die. Her left arm was inside the garage and was beside her. Unless if fell off, it should be next to her body.

Factual error: After Gale talks to Sidney and Sidney seems doubtful of Cotton Weary's guilt, Kenny the Cameraman says to Gale, "Do you wanna go live?". Gale is an anchor/reporter for a tabloid-like show called "Top Story" (Sort of like "Current Affair", "Inside Edition", or "Hard Copy"). She does not work for CBS News or NBC News, etc. She does not have the power to "go live" and interrupt regular television programming.