Continuity mistake: When Helen sees in the mirror that her hair has been cut, she's holding her head with one hand but in the close-up she's holding her head with both hands. (00:57:52)
Deliberate mistake: In the jump scare at the end of the movie, the killer has both hands despite the amputation suffered earlier - however, since it's a confirmed non-sequitur dream sequence, it does not matter. (01:36:40)
Continuity mistake: Julie and Ray are hugging at the end. The sheriff asks them why they think the man was trying to kill them. Jennifer Love Hewitt's hand is on Freddie Prinze Jr.'s upper back in the closer shot and lower in the next one. (01:34:10)
Continuity mistake: When Julie finds the second body in the ice room, her hand is on its face in close-up, but you could see Jennifer Love Hewitt never ended up on any dead mug with a still hand when she was scooting. At best, it would have required a little bit of clearing from the ice cubes. (01:31:20)
Other mistake: When Julie stupidly distracts Ray during his fight with Willis, the hook misses Freddie Prinze Jr. by a mile. (01:29:00)
Factual error: When Julie is looking at the fisherman's obligatory serial killer wall of crazy, the newspaper clipping with Helen's face says "Friday, March 9, 1996." It was a Saturday. (01:25:10)
Continuity mistake: When Julie tells Ray on the boat that they didn't kill Egan, Jennifer Love Hewitt starts the line with her hair behind her shoulders; then she delivers it with hair in front of her left shoulder. It then keeps changing position between takes. (01:23:15)
Continuity mistake: In the famous alley scene where Helen, you can see the marching band with brass and drums in the initial shots, then in the intermediate shots it's random passersby, then it's the band again. (01:22:10)
Continuity mistake: When Helen verbally eviscerates the policeman inside the patrol car, she clutches the safety grill with her fingers positioned differently between shots (look at her index). (01:14:50)
Character mistake: Talking down Missy and her natural creepiness, Julie reminds her that she visited 'the other day'. No, it wasn't; it was just a few hours earlier.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of her second visit to Missy's house, Julie takes a walk around one corner of the porch, with the natural light changing dramatically in the space of a few steps. (01:06:20)
Continuity mistake: During the parade, the North Brunswick band at one point stops. After 2 cuts, we see the parade float with Barry and Helen stop. One of the children on it nearly loses her balance, smiles embarrassed at the camera and looks around. In the next shot, she is waving again at the crowd as if nothing happened. (01:04:50)
Plot hole: The killer, an underrated prankster, decides to have Julie find Max's body stuffed inside her car. Not only that, it would be too simple; he also packed the trunk with dozens of crabs of various sizes. Somehow he does this on the car (parked in the street) undetected, and still somehow he is around when Julie finds out, in a completely random spot, that is still in the middle of a city block. At this point, he is not only able to remove from the closed trunk the body undetected, but also the consortium of crustaceans, without leaving a single itty bitty wet spot inside the trunk, nor disturbing the gravel surroundings. This is flat-out impossible.
Continuity mistake: After finding the car stuffed with crustaceans, Julie asked for her friends' help and the three of them are by the trunk while Barry is about to open it. Julie, in great distress, is plucking her hair out. Then there's a shot with the POV from inside the trunk, and the three are looking at it, perfectly composed. Then it cuts back to the previous camera angle, and Julie is pulling her hair out again. (00:59:55)
Factual error: When Julie looks at her car's trunk, ignoring that some prankster killer converted it into a seafood restaurant, you can take a good look at the license plate. R6S - 387 is not a valid North Carolina license plate, due to the second character being a number instead of a letter. (00:59:00)
Continuity mistake: When Helen gets from the stairs to her room, her hair flips over her shoulder during a cut. (00:54:55)
Continuity mistake: Helen gets inside her house and says hi to her father. Her handbag is in her left hand. In the instant transition, she is holding her bag in her right hand. (00:53:30)
Continuity mistake: When Anne Heche makes her appearance, in the reflection of the mirror she is always looking at the two girls with her hand on her hips, elbow at an angle, but in the zoom on her full figure, she has her arms relaxed down her sides. (00:47:10)
Other mistake: The article about Susie Willis' death misspells "Sheriff" ("sherriff") and is a loop of the same paragraphs over and over. So is the article with the obituary. (00:45:10)
Other mistake: The first article that Julie pulls up from her web search is supposedly about the local team, the Marlins, but it is in fact a patchwork of text from unrelated real-life articles dating to early April 1997, going from WNBA news to an actual murder case in Indianapolis. (00:45:00)
