Revealing mistake: After Van Helsing's lecture, there is a quick scene showing Jonathan as the prisoner of Dracula's brides. At the start of the scene, there is a close-up of one of the brides' eye, where you can see the edges of her contact lens. (00:56:57)
Continuity mistake: When Mina is asleep in Dr. Seward's quarters, Dracula enters her bedchamber in the form of green mist. In the first shot, a black chair is sitting by the window, in front of Dr. Seward's wardrobe. When Mina is on the bed with Dracula, the chair is sitting directly beneath the window, next to the wardrobe (this is best seen when Dracula embraces Mina after they exchange blood). In the shot where Jonathan helps Mina out of the bed after the vampire hunters walks in on her and Dracula, the chair is once again sitting in front of the wardrobe. (01:35:30 - 01:42:45)
Revealing mistake: When Dracula escapes from Mina's bedchamber, he transforms into a figure of rats. If you look at the waist area beneath the humanoid rat figure's right arm, you can see one of the metal rods of the armature that was used to create the rat dummy. (01:43:05)
Revealing mistake: When Dracula enters Mina's bedroom in the form of green mist, at the end of the first shot, as the mist begins moving across the floor, a vertical beam of the green light that was used to color the mist appears beneath the chair that is sitting by the window (as stated in the film's official behind the scenes book, the effect with the mist was accomplished by using dry ice smoke which was lit green and superimposed on the set with a 50/50 mirror). (01:35:35)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing fends off Lucy in the crypt, he forces her to lie down inside the stone coffin and fall asleep. However, when Arthur and Van Helsing proceed to kill her, you can see that she is no longer lying inside the coffin but is lying on top of it, on the stone lid; this is best seen in the overhead shot where we see the stake go through her heart and the shot where her head is sliced off. There is no way that the vampire hunters took an angry and dangerous vampire out of the coffin, proceeded to push the heavy stone lid back into place and then placed her on top of the lid before they proceeded with their grisly work. (01:27:15)
Continuity mistake: When Elisabeta commits suicide by jumping into the river, her suicide letter is lying on the floor (it is definitely the suicide letter and not the false message from the Turks, because the words and handwriting are 100% identical to the suicide letter that Vlad finds - the actual message from the Turks can be seen in a brief flashback during the scene with Mina and Dracula at the restaurant later in the film). However, when Vlad picks up and reads the letter, it is a different piece of paper: The frayed edges at the top have disappeared and the parchment itself is longer, with more distance between the bottom lines of the message and the bottom of the paper. (00:02:50)
Revealing mistake: When Jonathan is being seduced by Dracula's brides, right before their first bite, there is a close-up of one of the brides' eye, where you can see the edges of her purple contact lens. (00:33:45)
Continuity mistake: When Lucy tells Mina that she's accepted Arthur's marriage proposal, we see the garden pond at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Lucy's bedroom, which has a pedestal in the middle, topped with a tall, pointed pyramid sculpture. When Dracula enters Lucy's garden maze after the Demeter docks in London, the camera pans up the stairs and back again, and the pyramid has a different shape and is much smaller. When Lucy walks down the stairs in a trance, the large pyramid is back. (00:36:40 - 00:40:20)
Continuity mistake: When Dracula drops Mina off the coach, and in the establishing shot of the scene where Van Helsing tasks Quincey with guarding Lucy, there is a giant fence outside Hillingham, Lucy's estate, with considerable distance between the fence and the estate. However, the opening wide shot of the scene where Dracula arrives in London shows that the building is facing the edge of a giant hill, with no fence outside (it is definitely the same side of the building, because the architecture is identical). (00:40:00 - 00:54:39)
Factual error: When the Demeter comes to London, there is a wide shot of the ship docking, with Hillingham sitting on top of a hill overlooking the city of London - you can see Big Ben, the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. However, when Mina opens Jonathan's letter earlier in the film, there is a close-up of the envelope and the address of Hillingham Estate is not London: It states that Hillingham is situated in Faversham, Kent, a town located approximately 50 English miles away from London. (00:35:30 - 00:40:05)
Continuity mistake: When Dracula flies into the room while the brides are drinking Jonathan's blood, Jonathan's boots are still on, but when two of them tangle up in each other and crawl away, he is barefoot. (00:34:10)
Revealing mistake: During Lucy's funeral scene, if you look at her abdomen as the camera pans through the shot, you can see Lucy breathing when she's supposed to be dead. Very obvious on a big screen, not as much on a small screen. (01:21:15)
Continuity mistake: When Renfield blurts out to Dr. Seward "I need lives for the master", he puts his right hand over his mouth, but in the next shot, he's holding his left hand over his mouth. (00:25:30)
Continuity mistake: After Monica Bellucci rises up from the bed, the bedding instantly changes from pink, to a shiny fabric of many different colours. When Dracula flies into the room, the bedding goes back to pink, before becoming shiny again. (00:32:30)
Continuity mistake: After Dracula slits his chest so Mina can drink his blood, his hair alternates between being over/behind his shoulder, depending on the camera angle: In the shots facing Dracula, his hair is hanging over his shoulder, but in the shots from behind him, facing Mina, his hair is behind his back. (01:40:10)
Revealing mistake: In one of the first scenes, Winona Ryder (as Vlad the Impaler's wife), is lying on the floor, dead. Gary Oldman's Vlad falls to his knees, heartbroken, right next to the "dead" Winona, who flinches. (00:03:34)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing performs the blood transfusion on Lucy, her dress keeps changing position; most noticeably, she alternates from having one breast exposed to being covered up from one cut to the next. (00:59:35)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Seward and Van Helsing run into Lucy's bedroom, in the first shot, she is lying sprawled on her bed with her head resting against the pillows at the top of the mattress. In the next shot, she is lying in the middle of the bed, about a meter away from the pillows, with her legs going over the edge of the bed. (00:59:10)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing hypnotizes Mina, the candle he is holding changes throughout the scene: In the shots facing Van Helsing, long pieces of wax are sticking up from the top of the candle, while in the shots facing Mina, they're gone. (01:43:40)
Continuity mistake: When Vlad heads out into battle, he leaves through the chapel doors, which open onto a view of the sky at sunset and his army assembled outside the door. After the battle, he re-enters the chapel through the same doors, which now open into a much smaller space, terminating in a giant stone wall. (00:01:35 - 00:03:25)
Answer: For protection from the inmates.
raywest