Basic Instinct

Continuity mistake: In his office, Michael Douglas looks up Hazel Dobkins' name on the police computer. Gus Moran comes in to speak to him and the pencils in the pencil holder move between shots without anyone going near them. (00:45:35)

????

Continuity mistake: In the first scene of the movie Sharon Stone holds the end of her white silk scarf in her right-hand. In the next shot the end of the scarf is draped over her right hand. (00:03:25)

????

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Rocky and Nick are talking in the bathroom you can see Nick's back in the mirror - he has two nasty looking scratched up areas of bare skin on his back - then when he turns and returns to the bedroom you can see that he now only has a couple of superficial marks.

Continuity mistake: At his apartment Michael Douglas takes his sunglasses off and puts them down on the counter where Sharon Stone later breaks up a big hunk of ice for their drinks. The glasses rotate 45 degrees throughout the scene without anyone going near them. (01:04:00)

????

Continuity mistake: In the first scene of the movie Sharon Stone ties Jonny Boz's right hand with her white silk scarf. When we first see his hand it's wide open than in the next shot it's closed only to open as she pulls the knot tightly. (00:03:35)

????

Continuity mistake: At the beach house, Catherine is cutting up a large piece of ice with an ice pick. Depending on the direction of the camera, the ice changes size: in one shot it's all together; but in the next shot there's a large chunk pushed to the left of her.

kh1616

Continuity mistake: Michael Douglas waits in the dark in Jeanne Tripplehorn's apartment and says to her after she walks in, " Tell me about Catherine". At first we see a couch and chair on the right side of the room but two shots later as he walks towards her these two items have been removed from the room. (01:38:40)

????

Continuity mistake: When Nick and Gus are driving Katherine to the police station for the first time, they drive past the same stretch of coast about three times throughout the scene. Most obviously seen by the position of the small island - it jumps from being in the distance, to being even with the car, then behind the car, then in front again etc.

Plot hole: This is another movie where the cops are too dumb to go out by themselves. The woman who icepicks the first victim (we see) to death would have left enough forensic evidence on the scene to convict her ten times over - skin, hair, sweat, saliva, vaginal fluid, possibly blood, and they all contain DNA in abundance. She had vigorous, sweaty sex with this man and she didn't clean up afterwards (and she couldn't have done so thoroughly enough anyway) so she's left calling cards all over the place. The killer also handled the icepick (which the police take away in an evidence bag) with bare hands - her prints would be all over it. She might as well have left a signed confession, but they can't even identify her. Sharon Stone, for instance, leaves her fingerprints (on the chair and fixtures in the police station) and her saliva (containing epithelial skin cells which are an excellent source of DNA) on the cigarette butt she discards, also in the police station. She went there of her own accord and these artifacts are legally accessible by the police. It is obvious to anyone that the women who had sex with the victim killed him, and Catherine is most certainly a suspect. They don't have enough to charge her but they would if they did a simple series of tests on the dead man's body - and if she didn't do it, that would eliminate her as a suspect. They don't even check.

More mistakes in Basic Instinct

Gus: I thought you said he was a rock and roll star.
Lt. Walker: He was a retired rock and roll star.
Capt. Talcott: A civic-minded, very respectable rock and roll star.
Gus: What's that over there?
Nick: It looks like some civic-minded, very respectable cocaine to me, Gus.

More quotes from Basic Instinct

Trivia: Director Paul Verhoeven actually has a PhD in mathematics. He received it back in the 1960's in Holland. He left the field and became a film director. (From Director's commentary on "Basic Instinct: The Original Director's Cut".).

Luna Negra

More trivia for Basic Instinct

Question: Why did Catherine change her mind about killing Nick at the end? Obviously she was planning on killing him anyway, but she changed her mind only hours after ending their relationship when her book was finished and was of no further use. So why did she spare him? Was it because she fell in "love" with him?

Movielover1996

Answer: There's no definitive answer to this and the ending is deliberately ambiguous and open to interpretation. The audience is left to speculate whether or not Catherine kills Nick, or if she intended to kill him but changes her mind because she loves him, or intends to kill him at a much later time, and so on.

raywest

More questions & answers from Basic Instinct

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.