Halloween

Halloween (1978)

93 mistakes - chronological order

(26 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Michael is at Tommy's school, there are cars parked across the street. When he gets in the car to leave, they are gone.

Visible crew/equipment: When Laurie is trying to escape from the kitchen, you can see some kind of blue light in the top left corner making it look like it's light from the moon.

Plot hole: When Laurie and her friend see the Sheriff in front of the hardware store, he tells them someone broke in and stole "A Halloween mask, some rope, and a couple of knives." Without someone doing a complete inventory of the store, there would be no way to know the specific items that had been stolen, especially when they are such commonplace things as knives and rope in a hardware store.

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Suggested correction: Simple, he watched the security footage.

Before shutting off the alarm? Store video wasn't really a thing in a small town store back then.

Continuity mistake: 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.

Deliberate mistake: The opening camera scene, that's supposed to be shot from Michael's POV as a child, is too high as noted that he's almost face to face with his parents at the end of the scene and then is only mid-chest up to the father when he removes the mask. The POV is also too high as he walks across the dining room and as he approaches his sister upstairs.

Continuity mistake: After Tommy breaks the pumpkin, he is now walking on the sidewalk without the books that he was holding before.

oswal13

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Suggested correction: You are incorrect, but it's an understandable mistake to make because the scene is very dark. It's hard to see, but Laurie actually uses both hands to break the glass... she puts them together and then slaps them through the window in a quick, fluid motion. (If you go through frame-by-frame or in slow motion, it's much, much easier to see.) That's why you're seeing two hands. It's not a crew member's hand... it's Jamie Lee Curtis' other hand.

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: Michael breaks the passenger front door window on the wagon when he takes car, a short time later when he's driving in town the window is not broken.

Audio problem: While Lynda is filing her nails just as Michael enters the scene wearing a sheet and glasses, the sound of her filing continues despite her pausing.

Erik M.

Continuity mistake: Before Tommy breaks the pumpkin at the school in the background there are 2 kids, one with a hat holding something in his hands which disappears in the next shot.

oswal13

Revealing mistake: When Michael cuts Annie's throat, notice there's no visible cut or blood at all. When your throat is cut blood is going to pour out.

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Suggested correction: True, but the view we have is distorted because it's shown through the windshield in a dark garage. Blood most likely poured out, but we don't see it because of how it's shown to us.

dewinela

In the documentary, John Carpenter specifically stated that he left out of the gore on purpose. He wanted to film the movie so that the viewer would have a "mental image" of the kills without all the blood. He wanted it to be left to the imagination of the viewer.

Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the film when Michael is walking through the house, the clocks have different times on them. After he walks by the clock in the living room, it says 9:40. Seconds later, it strikes ten times.

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Suggested correction: This scene jumps ahead as Michael was in the living room waiting for them to finish having sex and the boyfriend to leave.

Plot hole: Since the station wagon from the asylum was stolen, it should have been reported stolen along with the escape of Mike Myers. So why was the sheriff department not looking out for the stolen station wagon? We see Myers driving that station wagon freely without being stopped, while wearing a mask in broad daylight.

Continuity mistake: When Laurie, Annie and Lynda are walking home from school, the part where Lynda walks to her house you can see the station wagon on the side of the road behind them. A few seconds later it has moved up the side of the street.

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Suggested correction: This is intentional. Many times, even driving, Michel can be seen lurking in the background and following them around in this car. This is mean to create a subliminal element of suspense and unnerving restlessness with him always creeping about.

Quantom X

Brackett: You know, it's Halloween. I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare.

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Trivia: When they were shooting the scenes for the start of the film (all the ones seen from Michael's POV) they couldn't get the 6-year old child actor until the last day so the movie's producer, Debra Hill, volunteered to be Michael for any scenes where his hands come into view. This is why the nails on young Michael's hands look so well manicured and varnished.

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Question: Where did all of the kids' parents go that required babysitters for the entire night? Seems like a small town such as Haddonfield would not have many options.

Answer: There are only two families that hire babysitters in the film, the Doyle and Wallace families. Where they went is never explained, but it could be potentially anywhere. They could have gone on a trip out of town for the night, they don't have to be in Haddonfield.

BaconIsMyBFF

Where did it state this was all night? It could have been a few hours. Remember that in the next one, it is still the same night and stays night through the entire movie.

Answer: Annual Halloween party as evidenced in the following instalment. Dr Mixtner was drunk and was at a party. The Strodes were also at a party, the same one if I recall correctly as the doctor.

Alan Keddie

Also we only SEE two families have babysitters. Other families could have had babysitters. We just don't see this. (I'm not sure if this adds anything additionally to the question asked, tho).

Alan Keddie

And why did Laurie's parents not come to the hospital? Did they not know she was there, even after the news release about the attack?

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