Halloween (1978) - 37 mistakes

Continuity: In the scene when Michael is carrying Annie's body into the house her head is on the left side of his body. After they show the boy looking out the window they cut back to Michael and suddenly Annie's head is on the right side of his body.

Factual error: Even though the story is set in Haddonfield IL, all of the cars have California license plates.

Revealing: There is a scene where Michael Myers is hiding behind a hedge bush and Laurie and her friend go to investigate. Laurie turns around and talks and you see cigarette smoke go by the camera. It came from one of the camera crew members shooting the scene.

Continuity: In the closing credits, Michael Myers is said to be 23 years of age, he was actually 21.

Continuity: When Laurie is walking home the sidewalk instantly goes from wet to dry.

Visible crew/equipment: Just before Laurie stabs Michael with the knitting needle you can see that one of the window shutters is open and that the wind is ruffling the curtain. When the camera gets closer and the curtain is out of the way you can see the huge fan in the studio being used to simulate the wind outside.

Continuity: When Laurie is beating on the door to Tommy's house and telling him to open it, the door knob is on the right side of the door. When it shows Tommy opening it from the inside, the door knob is also on the right side (it should be on the left).

Continuity: There is a scene involving Michael Myers breaking the closet in order to get to Laurie, then why near the end of the film does it show you the closet in tip-top condition?

Continuity: In certain shots, you can see that the William Shatner mask had not been fully painted white, because you can see the flesh coloured neck, but in other shots it is fully painted.

Visible crew/equipment: When Annie is locked in the laundry room, there's a scene where the phone is ringing incessantly and the camera pans slowly to the right showing little Lindsay Wallace who's too busy watching television to answer the phone. If you watch this scene in widescreen, you'll see a crew member lurking in the shadows (left side of the screen) on the wall. It appears they are trying to avoid being seen.

Continuity: When Annie drops Laurie off at Tommy's house the front door of his house is glass, but later it is a plain door.

Continuity: After Laurie asks Annie what she is going to wear to the dance (while Annie is driving with Laurie), we see Annie turn the steering wheel to the left, yet the car turns right as seen on the green screen in front of them. As the car is turning right, it cuts back to Annie still turning the steering wheel left.

Continuity: When Laurie is in the bottom of the closet hiding from Michael, you can see that a purple dress is in front of the rest of the clothes. However when she stands up to grab a hanger, a pink sweater is in front only to be behind the purple dress again when she sits back down.

Continuity: Toward the end of the movie, Dr. Loomis comes up the stairs and starts to shoot Michael six times, sending him spiraling to the terrace. Take notice that Michael is about to go over the ledge of the terrace head first. In the next shot it shows him carefully backing off the ledge, while facing the house.

Revealing: During the scene when Michael steals the station wagon from Dr. Loomis and the nurse, when she is lying across the seat you can see the passenger window is clean and very much transparent. However in the very next scene where Michael goes to smack his hand on the window, it is now foggy - a side effect of the glass alternative used for the effect.

Factual error: When Dr. Loomis is at the pay phone talking to someone at the mental institution, the background of the scene has mountains, which in fact Illinois does not have any mountains.

Continuity: Laurie's hair keeps changing throughout the movie. Her hair changes from wavy to straight while she babysits the kids. It is wavy again when she is going to Lindsey's house, and straight again when she is running back to Tommy's house. It stays straight until Michael starts to strangle her,where it becomes wavy again, having been straight in the previous shot. It all ends with straight hair. Surely all of this could not happen in a matter of hours.

Continuity: When Lynda is talking about how she forgot her books (at the beginning of their walk home) we see Michael Myers drive by, then speeds up and drives passed a driveway, then it cuts to Annie (Myers is still driving) and she says, "Hey Jerk. Speed Kills." We see Michael driving again and he is just a bit behind the drive-way he drove by before, he should be much farther ahead down the road at the speed he was going.

Visible crew/equipment: During the opening sequence, the scene is shot in first-person point-of-view from the young Michael Myers. As he walks through the house, the shadow of the camera can be seen several times. After he picks up the knife in the kitchen, the camera's shadow is visible on the door frame leading into the dining room. It can be seen again just before he turns to go upstairs.

Revealing: In the scene where Dr. Sam Loomis is calling from a pay phone warning of Michael Myers return to Haddonfield, a Southern Pacific freight train passes by blowing its horn (you can't see the train in the standard version). While SP trains are quite common in Southern California where the film was made, they don't actually travel through any part of Illinois.