Poltergeist (1982) - 28 mistakes

Continuity: The piece of licorice that Carol Anne puts into the cigar box with the dead parakeet "for when he's hungry" appears to be close to 6 inches long when she's placing it in the box but no more than a couple of inches long when it's shown in the box a few moments later.

Other: When the father tucks Robbie in and Robbie says "I don't like the tree, dad." the camera shot begins rolling to the left. Robbie flinches when reacting to someone telling him to lean back more so he's not blocking too much of the father's face. The father also improvs a solution by gently pushing Robbie's shoulder back a bit as well.

Continuity: Toward the end of the movie, as the family gets in the car and leaves, the garage door is closed on the house. But when the house begins imploding, suddenly the garage door is wide open.

Continuity: Just before the house starts to implode, Teague is backing away from it and as he does so, he passes a couple of white garbage bags on the sidewalk and backs into the street. In the next shot, taken from across the street showing bystanders being blown backwards, Teague is visible in the background; he's back on the sidewalk tripping backwards over the same bags he safely passed moments before.

Factual error: During the climax of the film, coffins from the cemetery below rise out of the ground. Only problem: they're rising vertically. Coffins are laid horizontally.

Other: When the chair moves across the kitchen floor, Craig T. Nelson goes to investigate it (after it has stopped moving). He goes up to the chair and flips it over. If you look closely, Craig almost hits the camera with the chair's legs. You can tell this has happened because the camera moves up very quickly and Craig looks straight at the camera crew with very big guilty eyes. This is more easily visible on the widescreen version of the film.

Continuity: Likewise, when Carol Anne is being sucked into the closet vortex she clearly lets go of the white wicker headboard of her bed. In the next shot, the child (actually a dummy or a stunt double) is seen sailing into the closet, grasping a sizeable section of the now broken headboard.

Visible crew/equipment: In the breakfast scene when Robbie's milk glass spontaneously shatters from the bottom. Watch closely, you can see a string coming out of his cereal bowl and attaching to the bottom of his glass. Robbie just needs to give the glass a little tug, and splash. Watch in slo-mo a couple times, then it's really obvious at regular speed.

Continuity: As Diane brings the freshly-washed flask to Dr. Lesh, who's sitting at the kitchen table, the flask jumps from one hand to another.

Continuity: At the start of the film, the dog is seen going from room to room looking for food. Just before he goes into Dana's room, someone can be seen through the crack in the door, moving from left to right.

Continuity: When the men are watching football, they are reacting as if they are watching live action. However, the images shown on the TV are clearly in slo-motion.

Continuity: Robbie and Carol Anne share a bedroom, just to the left, and on an angle, of Dana's room (which is located upstairs, to the left, then directly ahead). This is obvious on a few occasions in the film (e.g. when the father says goodnight to them near the beginning of the film, and when the mother checks on them before having a bath near the end). At the end of the film when the poltergeist returns, the mother runs to rescue Robbie and Carol Anne from their bedroom - and bursts through the door to the left, and directly in front of her. Isn't that Dana's room?

Continuity: In the opening sequence while the kids are in bed, the toys on Robbie's headboard keep changing. The Rams football helmet is always there, but next to it, you will see a Star Wars droid, a race car, or a dinosaur, depending on which shot it is.

Continuity: The wicker headboard of Carol Anne's bed is ripped apart when she holds onto it to try to keep from flying into the closet. Towards the end of the movie, when her mom tucks her into bed,the headboard is intact and has had no repairs.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of the movie, when Diane falls down the stairs and runs towards the door, she grabs the door knob. When she gets thrown backwards, you can see the cable that is attached to her shirt, pulling her back, in the first couple of frames in slo-mo.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of the film, when she lands behind the stairs. If you look in the right hand corner, underneath the stairs, you can see tennis shoes running by.

Continuity: A few seconds before Robbie looks at his clown toy, you can see a Rubik's cube near his head. When the camera angle changes, the cube is gone.

Continuity: When they put Diane and Carol Anne into the bath tub, near the end of the film, look at Carol Anne's face. The red gunk changes in pattern every time we look at it.

Continuity: When the dog jumps in the back of the cab, he gets in the right side and Robbie is nowhere to be seen. It cuts away very briefly, and when it cuts back suddenly Robbie is very much on the right side of the seat and the dog is on the left- not enough time for them to have moved and settled in.

Continuity: A few seconds after Steve stops the car for his daughter, Robbie yells. During this brief scene you can see a bluish flannel on Robbie. About eight seconds later, Robbie's red pajamas reappear. Previous to these scenes, Robbie was wearing his red pajamas.