Shaun of the Dead (2004) - 52 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: At Barbara and Phil's house, just as the hooded zombie bites a chunk out of Phil’s neck (before Shaun leaps over the car hood) the black mat with two long white marks is visible on the pavement, behind the second zombie (beside the car). It’s gone in following shots.

Visible crew/equipment: In the Jaguar, after Ed explains that he already adjusted the seat and Shaun shouts, “Careful!,” when Ed pulls out of the driveway a seated crewmember is reflected on the side of the car. This does not refer to the zombie extras.

Revealing: In the beginning of the movie, where it shows the group of nodding zombies and the Shaun of The Dead logo is on the ground, look to your left, the zombie actor stops nodding and looks around him to see if the shot is still being filmed, and he immediately goes back to nodding. Look out for it, it's obvious.

Continuity: When Ed drives Phil's Jaguar, its rearview mirror disappears and reappears repeatedly.

Continuity: If you look closely as Shaun and the gang impersonate zombies, all the zombies around them are constantly moving between shots.

Continuity: After Ed and Shaun make the plan to save everyone, we see the close-up shot of the TV where the announcer is saying that nobody to try and save their friends and family. If you look at Shaun, you see the handle end of the cricket bat in his right hand, and he is facing the TV screen. In the shots immediately before and after that, Shaun is not only turned away from the TV, but the handle is in his left hand.

Continuity: When Barbara dies, she is lying on her back on the seat. Later, when Liz and Shaun are talking about shooting her, she sits up as if she was lying on her front, with her head going backwards. If she was lying on her back then her head would have come forwards.

Visible crew/equipment: When Shaun scales up the side of the building to Liz’s apartment the second time, just as he places the cricket mallet on the floor and begins to climb through window, the steel tubing for the scaffold platform is visible just to his right.

Continuity: When Shaun bursts into the shed, the whole door falls off the frame. Seconds later when we see the shot of Shaun and Ed with the bat and shovel, there's two pieces of wood attached to the hinge on the right side of the doorframe.

Revealing: When Shaun tackles the blue robe zombie they both slam through the wood fence. The thick black protective vest that Shaun wears is very noticeable under his shirt and is actually visible below his shirt collar.

Continuity: As David is trying all the switches on the fuse box, he flicks a few off and you can see about a half of dozen of them flicked up. In the following shot only one switch is flicked up.

Revealing: When Ed hits the zombie in the eye with the record, you can see for a split second that the record misses the zombie completely, then the camera cuts and a different, breakaway (or CGI) record hits the zombie.

Continuity: At John's pub, when Liz has a look at Barbara’s bloody wound, it is about 2” above her left wrist, but when Shaun lifts his mum’s sleeve, it’s about 6” above her left wrist.

Continuity: When Shaun climbs up to Liz’s apartment, there is a large handbag that hangs on the back of chair beside the window, but it is gone in the next close-up.

Continuity: When throwing records at the zombies, watch when Ed throws one at the girl. As he throws it, her head is to the left but when the camera shows a close up when the record hits her, her head is to the RIGHT.

Visible crew/equipment: Each time Shaun goes to the store, you can see the reflection of the camera on the freezer's door.

Continuity: At the end of the 'Queen Fight' - Shaun pushes John into the jukebox using the pool cue, as he does this he blatantly falls backwards to the floor, however the very next shot he is moving backwards whilst standing upright.

Visible crew/equipment: When the blue tux zombie walks in through the ever unlocked front door, in the shot facing Ed and Shaun as they get up screaming, two blue tape T-marks are visible on the rug, between the couch and chair. It is visible in a couple of shots, but gone in the rest.

Visible crew/equipment: Throughout the film, the reflector screen and/or set lights are reflected in David’s eyeglasses.

Continuity: The field in front of Liz's flat is large and unfenced. Yet, when Shaun climbs up to her window, there is a fence not more than ten feet away. He couldn't have run round the side as the sound of the zombie's are coming from the same direction.

Revealing: When Shaun shoots the naked zombie, the hole in the back of his head doesn't quite move with his actual head.

Continuity: When Shaun goes to the newsagents after the dead rise, he gets a drink out of the fridge, which has blood-stained hand prints on. He slips on what we assume is blood as he walks away, yet on the way in and as he leaves the shop you can see behind him that there is no blood or any other liquid on the floor.

Visible crew/equipment: When Shaun is walking to the shop for the second time, as he passes the blue car (after he trips on the pavement) he passes a house with its front door open. Clearly reflected on the bottom half of this houses window is the boom microphone following Shaun.

Continuity: When Ed and Shaun use Pete’s car, the rearview mirror changes its characteristics between shots. Things such as being large with perfect 90° angles to being smaller and having curvier edges or being attached to the black unit on the car ceiling to being attached to the windshield.

Continuity: At the Winchester, Liz knocks zombie John’s eyeglasses off, but then it is back on his face only to be knocked off again.

Continuity: In the pub scene towards the end when the zombies are taking over, Ed lights up a cocktail, but then in the next shot when zombies break through the door and attack him, the rag is unlit.

Continuity: When Shaun and Ed bring out the basket of mugs, pots and toasters etc., to throw at the two zombies, in one closeup we see Ed pick up a mug and a saltshaker, but in the next shot we see him throwing a wooden mugtree.

Continuity: When Shaun and Ed repeatedly hit the two zombies in the back garden, no blood appears on the cricket bat or shovel, however it does splatter onto their shirts.

Other: When Shaun is hitting a zombie after leaving Liz's place, you can see he hits the grass, not the zombie. Yet the zombie reacts.

Revealing: Many times during the film the cricket bats can be seen bending when they connect with the zombies, one of the more noticeable occurrences of this is when Shaun runs out of his girlfriend's flat to get to the car, every zombie he hits the bat bends.

Continuity: In the scene where Shaun meets Yvonne for the first time in the film, the nametag on his shirt is visible and then gets covered by his jacket as the shot changes between the characters.

Continuity: In the yard, when Shaun stabs the blue robe zombie, the metal pole still sticks out of his chest a good 4-5 feet, but when Dianne gives her zombie acting lessons the pole barely sticks out of the zombie’s chest.

Continuity: After Ed kills his first zombie, there is a blood stain on the right of his "I Got Wood" emblem on the t-shirt. But when they are throwing objects at the two zombies in the garden, this blood stain has somehow vanished.

Continuity: Just after Liz and Shaun have come out of the cellar, the shot zooms out and you can see a few people behind them trying to get into the pub. In the following shot the number of people trying to get in has increased.

Continuity: As Shaun is giving the opening pep talk to his co-workers at the appliance store, his tie flips backward and forward several times.

Continuity: After Ed and Shaun pull up to Phil and Barbara’s house, the garbage bins move around by the time the zombie falls backwards onto them.

Continuity: In the scene when Shaun, Liz and Ed are trapped behind the bar, the zombies are leaning over the bar. But in the next shot, when Shaun pours spirits over the bar and lights it, the zombies have moved back from the bar.

Continuity: Mary (the checkout clerk who later appears in Shaun's garden as a zombie) works for a fictional supermarket chain, "Landis." But in the opening montage, all the till screens display "Welcome to ASDA" (Asda is a real chain of supermarkets in the UK).

Continuity: At the beginning of the film, when the camera pans across the road towards Shaun's house, the silver Renault badge on the hood of Pete's car is missing, but when Shaun goes to work that morning (Pete sits in the car), it's there. The badge disappears again later in the film.

Revealing: At the Winchester, just before Shaun shoots naked zombie Pete, his underwear is actually visible.

Continuity: When Shaun and Ed are threatening David, close ups of David's face show the bottle and corkscrew both being pointed from his left when Shaun and Ed are standing on opposite sides. David is also facing right in wide shots but left in the close ups.

Continuity: When Shaun and Ed are looking upstairs for Pete and Ed is about to go up, Shaun stops him with his arm. At first his arm is under Ed's hand. When it cuts, his arm is over Ed's hand.

Continuity: When David is pointing the rifle at Barbara and Shaun, you see the barrel of the rifle and David's hand holding it. When the camera moves so you can see David's face, his hands are higher up on the barrel. It's the same when the camera switches between these two shots again while Shaun and David are arguing.

Continuity: In the cellar, Shaun lights Ed's last cigarette and it appears to have barely caught on one side. The next shot, the cigarette's burned down evenly about half a centimetre, which means it's a different one from the one he lit before. (Tried this with a real cigarette before submitting. They just don't burn like that.).

Revealing: You can blatantly tell the pub owner zombie has padding on under his shirt for the pool cue attacks.

Continuity: Shaun's "To Do" list, which he writes on the whiteboard, changes. He doesn't write an exclamation mark, and he swipes the marker pen through the word "OUT." However when we see it the following morning when he awakes, there is a exclamation mark after the word "OUT", and the lines he drew through the word "OUT" have moved and are now underneath the word.

Continuity: When the shells are firing off in the bar fire, there are three shots of the box of shells. The box refills itself between every shot.

Continuity: In the scene where Ed smashes the ashtray on the zombie's head, his right hand goes to pick up the ashtray. In the next shot, his right hand is empty and in the close shot of the zombie we see the ashtray in Ed's hand again.

Continuity: In the beginning when Shaun is at work and is talking with Liz on the phone, when they are done he puts the phone down. Two cuts later we see him putting it down again.

Other: Ed strikes several zombies while driving the Jaguar. However, the car doesn't even get a single scratch.

Factual error: When Shaun, Ed, and Liz are hiding behind the bar in the pub that they've lit on fire, Ed tells Shaun he's left the shells on the counter. Shortly thereafter, the fire ignites the box of shells and bullets start to hit the zombies around them. However, casings for bullets are very weak and without a steel barrel around the shell the casing would rupture before enough pressure formed behind the bullet to propel it at any dangerous velocity. It's only when the casing has reinforcement around it that a bullet becomes dangerous.

Continuity: The red ink on Shaun's pocket at work changes from a solid blob to one with a few spots above it back to solid.