Night of the Living Dead

Continuity mistake: When Barbara runs away from the zombie in the graveyard, she is barefoot. Then when she falls down, her shoes fall off. (00:07:20)

ujeremy

Continuity mistake: When Barbara first sees Ben pull up in the truck through the window he is driving a square shaped front end General Motors truck, but in all other shots in the film the truck is a rounded front end Chevrolet truck. (00:13:35)

Continuity mistake: The woman has blood from the corpse upstairs dripping on her right hand. In the very next shot her right hand has no signs of blood, and she's shown wiping non-existent blood from her left hand. (00:16:14)

Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Barbara finds a corpse at the top of the farmhouse stairs with its face partially eaten away. Later, when Ben drags the corpse into another room we get a fleeting glimpse of its face and it shows no sign of decay of any sort.

Continuity mistake: A scene is shown where the zombies smash the headlights of the truck that Ben arrived in. Later in the movie, when they attempt to refuel the truck, both headlights are fully intact and lit.

Continuity mistake: When Ben, Tom and Judy are trying to escape from the zombies in the truck, it is dark, but when the zombies are giving chase, dawn is breaking, and when the truck gets to the gas pump it is now dark once more. This is just one of a number of scenes in this film that change from darkness to daylight and vice-versa.

Will

Continuity mistake: In the scene during which Mr. Cooper and Tom make their appearance, a large sweat stain mysteriously appears, disappears, and reappears on Tom’s shirt through the several shots that take place during a few minutes time.

Continuity mistake: Ben finds a shotgun and a pair of ladies' shoes in one of the cupboards, he puts the shoes onto Barbara's feet and then he leaves the room, as the next shot cuts in Barbara is sitting on the sofa in her stocking feet, and the shoes are nowhere to be seen.

Will

Continuity mistake: While Ben is trying to escape with Tom and Judy, he is holding a table leg that is being used as a burning torch, just before he gets into the back of the truck, the torch is nearly going out, but when he gets into the back of the truck, the torch is burning brightly.

Will

Continuity mistake: Again, from the opening graveyard segment. As the first zombie approaches Johnny and Barbara, his position and distance from them changes inconsistently with the actual passage of time. Although he is incredibly slow moving, he manages to move about 30 yards in 4 seconds. He is about 25-30 yards away in one shot, and 4 seconds later he is coming up to Barbara and grabs her.

Continuity mistake: When Ben throws a chair outside and lights it on fire to scare the zombies we see a view from behind the chair and the torch made out of a table leg Ben has is on it. Then we see Ben and he still has the torch in his hand and he throws it on the chair.

Continuity mistake: There is a scene where Ben fires the rifle through the window at one of the zombies for the first time. Just before he fires the first shot Tom is standing to the left of Ben. Just after he he fires the shot, Cooper has suddenly appeared and is standing to the right of Ben.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Ben is dragging the body out of the house to be burned, he is seen on the porch lighting the zombie on fire. The shot changes to show two zombies coming towards him, but when the shot goes back to Ben he is now off the porch about 5 to 7 feet with the corpse blazing in front of him.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the guy shoots the zombie through the boarded up window, the first time he shoots it through the left side. It then gets back up. When he shoots it through the right side and it gets back up, there is no bullet hole on the right.

Continuity mistake: Just after Mrs Cooper has come up from the cellar for the first time, Tom says to her "I gotta go help Ben with the television." Her arms are lowered by her side, but when the next shot cuts in, where Mr Cooper is in the foreground, her arms are now raised up to her chest.

Will

Continuity mistake: Throughout the night scenes outside, patches of the terrain out in the middle of nowhere are mysteriously illuminated so we can see the zombies. Where is this light coming from? There are no street lights, no nearby houses, no car headlights, and the moon would not cast light in the shape of conveniently located spot light patterns where the zombies just happen to be walking or laying dead.

Continuity mistake: As Barbara enters one of the rooms in the house, she is carrying a knife with her arms raised at a 90 degree angle, but when she sees the three animal heads on the wall, the next shot cuts in with her arms lowered, with not enough time for them to move.

Will

Continuity mistake: While Ben is watching television with the rifle resting on his lap, watch how the position of the rifle changes position between shots.

Will

Continuity mistake: During Barbra's speech after Ben removes the legs from the dining table, he moves the table top and rests it against a window. When he tells Barbra to "keep calm" the table top disappears. After getting the hammer and telling her to "calm down" the table top reappears.

c00ld00d

Continuity mistake: When Ben tells Barbara to look for wood, she heads to the fireplace, which, in the scene where she first enters the house, is covered with a cast iron screen with a slit in it. It is completely open, with no screen to be seen anywhere, when she gets the wood from it.

Continuity mistake: A scene is shown where the zombies smash the headlights of the truck that Ben arrived in. Later in the movie, when they attempt to refuel the truck, both headlights are fully intact and lit.

More mistakes in Night of the Living Dead

Newscaster: Reports, incredible as they may seem, are not the results of mass hysteria.
Harry Cooper: "Mass hysteria?" What do they think, we're imagining all this?
Ben: Shut up.

More quotes from Night of the Living Dead

Trivia: The scene where Barbara crashes the car into the tree wasn't scripted originally; an accident that put a large dent in the car before the scene was shot prompted George Romero to re-write the scene in such a way that the dent is justified.

More trivia for Night of the Living Dead

Answer: No. Each is a progression of several weeks or years.

Captain Defenestrator

More questions & answers from Night of the Living Dead

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