Holes (2003) - 45 mistakes

Continuity: Charles Walker has a gold tooth. In the scenes where he is wealthy it is on the left side of his mouth. In the scene where he is poor and dusty, pointing a gun at Kate, it on the right side of his mouth.

Revealing: In the overhead view of the bus driving across the desert to Camp Greenlake the dust behind the bus is CG, and near the end of the scene the bus moves up in the frame and the end of the dust trail cuts off with a straight line.

Continuity: The cast even points this out on the commentary: At the camp, where the tents and cabins are, there are trees at times and sometimes there aren't.

Continuity: When we see Stanley after he has taken his shower and Mr. Sir is trying to shoot the lizard, Stanley is far away from his pile and close to Mr. Sir. In the very next shot, he is only a couple steps from his pile and farther from Mr. Sir than before.

Continuity: In the scene where Madame Zeroni is explaining to Ilya Yelnats about the curse that will be bestowed upon him if he doesn't carry her up the mountain after presenting the pig to Myra's father, her blouse is a blue button-up with gold stripes and no collar. Then the camera looks at Ilya, and then back at Madame Zeroni. When it looks back at Madame Zeroni, you can see that her blouse is now a gold button-up with a collar.

Continuity: At the end part, when the kids at Camp Green Lake go dance in the rain, we see Zero looking up and his hair is in the air. In a different camera angle, his hair is put down by the rain. But when the camera returns to him looking up, his hair is up again.

Continuity: When Zero runs away we see Stanley again taking his hat off but then the camera goes to a further angle we see Stanley not even touching his hat.

Continuity: in the scene where Mr. Sir gets angry at the boy who said, "What happened to your face?" he asks the campers if he looks good and you see D-Tent sitting in the upper left hand corner, everyone is sitting down. In the close up of D-Tent, X-Ray and Armpit are standing then. In the next shot with Mr. Sir, you see Armpit and Magnet going to sit down. Then back to Mr. Sir, you see X-Ray standing.

Deliberate "mistake": When Kate Barlow shoots the Sheriff, she shoots him between the eyes, but when she kisses him there is no hole or anything on his face.

Continuity: In the scene where Trout's gang burns the school and kills Sam, there is a part where Katherine runs into the sheriff's office then exits. A few seconds later, Katherine runs by a shop on which the name is reversed. Very obvious.

Continuity: When Stanley is in the cafeteria for the first time, he walks over to the counter to get his food and he has a cup on his tray, when there is a close-up of his tray, the cup is gone.

Continuity: When Stanley finds the lipstick tube of K.B., X-Ray takes the tube then Stanley stops him. We see two angles (in front and behind) and Squid keeps changing his spot from left to right every time we see a new angle.

Continuity: At the beginning when Stanley is digging his first hole, he has gloves in some shots and doesn't in others. (Specifically when he's complaining about the other guys' dirt).

Continuity: When Stanley drives up in the bus, he sees the black guy, and he fades away. at the same time, the bus window frame fades in, too.

Continuity: After Zero asks "Did they have red X's on them?" we see Zero, Squid, and Armpit. Armpit is bent low over the table, but in the very next shot when he says "What else can you do," he is sitting up straight.

Continuity: When the boys are surprised that Zero talked we see Armpit and X-Ray. X-Ray is holding food, but in the next shot he's just making a fist.

Continuity: In the scene at the end where they open the chest you can see the father with rubber gloves on, he takes his left glove off to look at the stock papers. You see him with his right glove on still, then caveman takes one of the papers from his father and he doesn't have any gloves on, and in the next shot he has it back on his right hand

Other: When Sam is selling his onions, he asks an old man to take his hat off so he can see if he's bald so he'll know if he needs to sell him some hair growing tonic. The old man is just barely taking off his hat and before Sam can even tell the old man has no hair, Sam says "Mm hm, just as I thought."

Audio problem: In the scene where you see Stanley's lawyer's car for the first time in the distance and Twitch says, "Jaguar-nice car," Magnet replies, but his lips aren't moving.

Continuity: When Sam is being chased out into the lake there is some sort of ball right beside his boat when he gets shot, but when they shoot him the ball has disappeared.

Continuity: Near the beginning when Mr. Sir says "Those buzzards will pick you clean..." he is walking away from Stanley. When the camera angle changes, he starts to walk away again.

Continuity: When Mr. Pedanski is explaining Camp Green Lake to Stanley, X-Ray, Armpit, and Squid come. Then right before X-Ray says, "Go ahead Pit" there is a shot with Mr. Pedanski and Stanley and there are two boys walking together. Then when we see Stanley and Mr. Pedanski again they're gone only for one boy.

Continuity: When Stanley is calling for Zero, the flap on the back of his hat keeps changing when the angles change.

Visible crew/equipment: In the part when Stanley and Zero are climbing God's thumb and Stanley is about to slip look closely and you can see the harness on Shia.

Continuity: When the tent D boys find the cloud in the sky, we see a shot of the cloud, the camera goes back to the boys and then back to the cloud. The problem is the cloud looks different in these two shots, even though the two shots were only seconds apart.

Continuity: When Stanley is getting into the orange suit when he first arrives, he buttons a button, then falls. Then he finishes buttoning his suit and goes outside with "Mom". When he's outside some of the buttons are unbuttoned.

Revealing: This is the scene in which Stanley and Zero dig up Kate Barlow's treasure. While they're holding it, we see a shot of Zero and a shot of Stanley. If you put it in slo-mo, when the camera changes to Stanley, you can see neon-green tape near his collar, marking where the computerized lizards will be.

Audio problem: When Mr. Pendanski is saying, "Smells like puke from a mule." if you look carefully he is actually saying, "Smells like piss from a mule." Original dialog is in the 'Deleted Scenes' section of the DVD.

Continuity: When we hear Stanley's voice reading the letter to his mother, we see Stanley getting food in the cafeteria. In all the different shots of his tray, the food and cup differ completely.

Continuity: When the Warden says to Stanley, "I still expect 7 holes." Stanley has his hat off, but in the next shot his hat is on again.

Continuity: When Elya Yelnats tells Myra's father that he has "a heart full of love" we see Myra in the background. She puts the laundry that she is washing up against her chest twice.

Continuity: When we see the flashback of Stanley's trial, we first see Stanley in a blue buttoned-down shirt. The camera goes to Clyde and when it goes back to Stanley he is in a dark-gray suit.

Continuity: When Zero hit's Mr. Pedanski in the face with a shovel, you see him fall face forward, but when we see him again his face is facing up.

Continuity: when Zero starts running away the warden we see from behind carrying her arms low. She says "don't shoot" then there is a shot of her front and she has her hands on her hips.

Continuity: When Stanley first goes into the Warden's cabin there's a short shot of him looking up and analyzing the place with his hair a little messy and sticking up. Next shot his hair's neater.

Continuity: In the scene when Armpit is doing his little break dance and lifts up his arms, Squid keeps appearing in and out of shots.

Continuity: When Stanley first asked Armpit where to get water, Armpit throws him to the ground and the boys crowd over Armpit's shoulder in the close up. But from behind we see that the boys are more spread out.

Continuity: In the scene where Stanley and Zero are trying to get up God's Thumb, Zero cut his hands while trying to help Stanley. There is a plain view of his hands with no blood. In the next scene he has blisters and blood all over his hands. Where did they go when he first cut them?

Continuity: When Zero throws up on the rock, we then see him start to roll down the hill and for a split second we see that the rock he just threw up on is dry.

Continuity: When Zero and Stanley are going to God's Thumb, they try going up the higher part of the cliff. Right after Stanley is near falling, it shows Zero placing his shovel to his side in pain from his cuts. In the next shot, he pushes it away again.

Continuity: When the boys were saying nobody messes with the Caveman, you see from behind X-Ray that both Magnet and X-Ray have their elbows on the pool table, but in the next shot X-Ray has his hands on the table and Magnet is going to put his elbows on the pool table.

Continuity: In the scene where Caveman and Zero found dirty water on the mountain, you see them splash around in it, but the next morning, in another scene, their suits are just dirty at certain spots.

Continuity: When they open the treasure at the end of the movie, Stanley hold his hand over his mouth before it opens. Then in the next shot his hands are on the table.

Continuity: At the end, right before the rainstorm comes, ZigZag jokes: "Say, I didn't know that Marian was a man's name." Mr. Sir replies: "It ain't" then ZigZag smiles and looks downward. The next shot, it zooms on Stanley (who is in front of ZigZag) and you can see that ZigZag has a blank expression on his face and is merely looking around.

Deliberate "mistake": In at least two different scenes, there are time-lapse shots of the stars moving across the sky above a horizon. Given that the location is Texas, they rotate in the wrong direction. If the horizon is southern, the stars should rotate left to right, not right to left. If the horizon is northern, they would rotate counterclockwise around a fixed point *above* the horizon, i.e. the North Pole (celestial), where the North Star would be.