Halloween (1978) - 38 mistakes

Continuity: At the very beginning, Michael Myers' sister and her boyfriend "go upstairs." Michael then sneaks around the house, picks up a knife, and follows them. As he is about to go upstairs, his sister's boyfriend leaves. He then proceeds upstairs, and finds his sister nude. The actual time elapsed from proposition to his exit is about one minute and fifty seconds. Is this really enough time to go upstairs, get undressed, go about your business, and get dressed again?

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.

Continuity: In the scene where young Michael Myers sees the clown mask, the closest piece of clothing is a red shirt. When he puts it on, the closest piece of clothing is now a blue piece of clothing.

Continuity: In the beginning, when the doctor is talking to the new nurse for Michael in the car, the nurse is smoking a cigarette, but seconds later she has just lit one up. If she smokes one in 45 seconds then lights up another she is one worst chain smoker I've ever seen.

Revealing: In the scene outside of Smith's Grove mental institution, where Michael jumps on top of the station wagon, he attacks the nurse, but she manages to wrangle free. A few moments later, he smashes the passengers side window. If you look closely, the actor's arm has a wrench taped to it in order to effectively break the glass injury free.

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.

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.

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.

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: After Laurie has been spooked by seeing Michael behind the bush she keeps walking and stumbles into the sheriff. If you look at her expression as she turns and yelps in "fear" you'll notice she's laughing! She even puts her hand over her mouth to hide it.

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

Factual error: When Laurie and Annie are on their way to babysit, and they see Annie's dad, the cop, as soon as they pull up to say hi and roll the window down, he mixes the two names up, and calls Laurie Annie, and Annie Laurie. You'd think he knows his own daughter's names.

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.

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.

Revealing: When Bob and Linda arrive at the Wallace house, the exterior shots show the doorknob on the front door to be on the left side which would mean the door would swing inward to the right. However, when the shot cuts to the inside of the house as the door opens, the door swings inward to the left and the doorknob is now on the right side.

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: In the scene when Laurie gets stabbed by her bro Michael in the arm she falls over the banister the camera shows a view of what she sees, falling at that angle Laurie would have broken her neck, spine and hip. But it is still weird how she managed to turn 180 degrees in such a short fall.

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).

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: 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.