Nitpickers Guide to the Halloween Series
Errors, plot oversights, Continuity problems, Production problems and other mistakes
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| Halloween | Halloween II | Halloween IV | Halloween V | Halloween VI |
| Halloween H20 | Halloween: Resurrection | Halloween: TV Cut | Halloween III | Rob Zombie's
Halloween |
Halloween: The Night He came home
| Plot Oversights | Continuity and Other | Facts You May Not Know |
| Movie Summary | Movie Review | Mike's Take |
When Marion is in the car waiting at the main gate Michael attacks her through the window. She then steps on the gas causing the car to move. That is all good but why did the car stop rolling when she took her foot off the gas to hide in the passenger seat? Guess the station wagon just stops completely when it wants to.
When Michael kills Lynda's boyfriend, he stabs him with the knife. The knife pierces into him right above the naval and the knife sticks itself into the door beyond. As you know, all your muscles relax when you die. His don't. He gets pinned up there but when he stops struggling, a sign that he is dead, you see that his upper back, neck and shoulder muscles remain flexed...that is, he doesn't slump over or at LEAST bend his neck down.
It has always bothered me that the high school in Halloween has outdoor lockers and outdoor hallways. No high school in Illinois, to my knowledge, would have outdoor lockers or hallways. It is too cold in the winter to have lockers outside.
After Michael 1st escapes, Dr. Loomis is trailing after him. At a public telephone booth, heading towards Haddonfield, you can see the reflection of the whole camera crew in the reflection of the glass in the panning shot.
Despite their encounter with the station wagon earlier in the day both Annie and Laurie fail to notice it trailing them on their way to baby sit. Also, Annie fails to notice it when she takes Lindsay across the street to "watch TV with Tommy Doyle."
When Annie is slashed in the throat Michael Myers cuts several vital organs. Annie's blood should have been sprayed all over the dashboard and windshield but this does not occur.
I also noticed that when Laurie entered the closet there are not many clothes within it. For a master bedroom and for being a woman Ms. Doyle doesn't have that many outfits.
After Laurie runs across the street and is banging on the door to the Doyle house she leans against the door with her left arm. Since Michael just stabbed her in that area there should be a blood stain on the door or at least a smear. Look closely no stain or smear appears.
When Michael escapes from the hospital and jumps on Marion's car, watch when he breaks the window. He is wearing a red shirt instead of a white hospital gown. Gravity should have kept his shirt down but instead we see a reddish shirt through the window.
Does Annie forget to find a pair of pants to wear. Why would anyone parade around in their underwear if they are going to pick up their boyfriend. Perhaps she is trying to tease Paul.
The Myers house is the exact same building in both Halloween and Halloween II but the house is completely different in Halloween V and another completely different house makes a appearance in Halloween VI.
How big is Haddonfield? Laurie meets Tommy on the way to school, so they can't live THAT far away.... ...yet it seems to take Annie a long, long time to get to the Doyle house.
Was it just me, or did those cheerleaders in Halloween one sound like Annie Brackett? "Were from Haddonfield couldn't be prouder, stand up taller, yell a little louder!" Listen to it! I think Nancy Loomis shoulda been credited...
"MY DAD!!!!!!" Also, why does Annie flip out when she sees her dad? He doesn't see her! He's busy checking out the drug store robbery...Annie could have just driven by!
Lynda must be a very light smoker... ...after "bobbing" with Bob, she lights her cigarette. It is only PARTIALLY lit, yet Lynda (the trooper) takes a deep puff and lets out..........AIR! hehehe
Oh, and I know that having sex is usually a part of teenage babysitting, but if you ask me Bob and Lynda had it coming...were they planning on the Wallaces partying all night? I was actually surprised the Wallaces didn't arrive home and catch them! And more than that, having sex leaves certain 'traces' behind, they most likely would have gotten caught.
One more thing about that...why DID the Wallaces have a Jack O'Lantern in their bedroom? Was this supposed to be some sort of kinky thing?
I know this usually happens in Horror Movies but why doesn't Laurie try to turn the lights on in Lindsay's house?? It would be easier to see.
When Tommy and Laurie cross the street together for the first time both of them fail to look both ways to cross the street. Maybe Laurie isn't such a goody two-shoes after all??
Later on Annie, Laurie and Lynda cross the together street without looking for cars. They are going to get themselves killed someday!!!
Laurie fails to look for cars again when Annie arrives to pick her up for their babysitting.
Michael Myers entered the Warren County Sanitarium as a child but upon his escape in 1978 he knows how to drive a car. Did somebody at the hospital teach him this? In Halloween VI his niece also knows how to drive even though her abduction took place before her 11th birthday. Man this Myers family is really special!
Perhaps the most famous Halloween goof occurs throughout the film. All the License plates read California but the film is supposed to take place in Illinois!!
The Shape supposedly doesn't get his mask and knife until after school is over when he brakes into the Hardware Store. He is seen with it on, however, before that when he is standing outside of Laurie's school, on the sidewalk and outside Laurie's house in Mr. Riddle's backyard.
There is a room that is off to the right side just inside the door of the Wallace house. Bob and Linda first walk into this room when they enter the house. But, the front door of the house is all the way to the right of the house and you can't see where the extra room would be over to the side of the house.
The Wallace house has the door knob on the left side when viewed from both sides of the door.
When Dr Loomis is talking with Dr. Wynn outside the hospital, you can see that Loomis is parked in a handicapped parking spot. You can ONLY see this goof if you have the widescreen version.
At the end of the movie, Laurie leaves the knife upstairs after she stabs Michael Myers in the closet. When they show different scenes later on, the knife is seen downstairs when Laurie left it upstairs.
In the Wallace house, as Lynda and Bob leave the living room
to go upstairs, Lynda trips over a dolly track. Well I guess everybody
makes mistakes.
The door to the Doyle house appears to be on the right for both sides of the
door.
The doorknob on the Doyle house is on the same side on both sides of the door. When Laurie bangs on the door for Tommy to open it, the knob is on the right side. When you see Tommy open the door (from the inside) the knob is also on the right side. This one always cracks me up because it is so obvious. This is due to the fact that the inside of the Doyle house was a separate set. Also, the door appears to be far to the right side of the house. When Lynda and Bob (and even Annie for that matter) enter the house, off to the immediate right is the living room. It's impossible since there's no room.
The film is supposed to take place in the flat lands of Illinois but when Loomis stops to make a phone call on his trip to Haddonfield, snow-capped mountains can be seen in the distance.
The pavement changes from dry to wet as Laurie walks home from school. Perhaps somebody was watering their lawn.
Michael has his age listed as "age 23" in the credits, where he was actually 21 in the film. Perhaps the producers forgot and made Myers two years older!
When Bob picks Lynda up in his arms, he leaves the van door
open. Then, they go into the Wallace house. After Lynda is murdered, Laurie
Strode goes across the street to inspect everything, and when she passes the
van, you can clearly see that the door has been closed. Maybe Michael did
it but we blame him for everything don't we?
Perhaps my most favorite plot oversight is when Michael follows Annie and Laurie
in the car, he parks only about one or two doors down from Lindsey's house.
Then later, when Loomis is standing in front of the Myers house, he turns around
and all of a sudden sees Michael's car. Since Michael never had time to move the
car, it could never have popped up in this new location. Besides if Loomis
was looking specifically for that car he would have seen it...wouldn't he??
Even though Michael's just a child at the beginning of the film, his P.O.V.
makes him appear as though he's a grown adult. This is evident when he reaches
for the knife and when he watches Judith's boyfriend leave, for example. Thats
because Deborah Hill plays Myers in that scene.
Again, the film is supposed to take place in Illinois during the month of
October yet their are palm trees seen several times in the film (because those
scenes were shot in California) and the leaves should not be green. There
are old, dry leaves blowing in the breeze or on the ground and yet every tree is
loaded with fresh, green leaves!!!
After Annie hangs up the phone from talking with Laurie (when Annie spills something on herself and then proceeds to the laundry room), the movie "The Thing" just begins. But when Annie returns from putting her clothes in the wash and hurries Lindsay over to the Doyle residence, you can hear in the background the TV announcer stating to stay tuned for the horrifying conclusion of "The Thing".
When Annie arrives to pick up Laurie at 6:30pm on Halloween, it the sun is shining. In fact, in Illinois at 6:30 on Halloween, it's already dark.
Annie opens her car door without unlocking it because Michael unlocked it and is waiting inside. While this could have aroused her suspicions if she were particularly alert, it might not registered until too late. It is a bit odd that she didn't even try to unlock it, though perhaps she doesn't always lock her car.
When Michael stabs his sister as a child, you see it from his point of view through the mask. As he is butchering her, he is not looking at her, but in fact he is staring at his own hand. This is presumably part of his sickness.
Other Continuity and Production Problems
Annie's underwear is white when she is talking on the phone and making popcorn. But, when she is out in the garage, they have polka-dots on them.
Lynda tells Bob to go upstairs, to the first door on the left. After Annie, Lynda, and Bob are killed, Laurie goes to look for them. She goes upstairs and passes the first door, going almost to the end of the hall before entering the bedroom. Maybe Michael moved the phone and pumpkin to the other room but he did make the bed!! The obvious conclusion is that both scenes take place in the same room.
Where did Michael keep the tombstone? Sure he had it in his car but when did he carry it to the house? Maybe he moved the car (to the place where Loomis sees it) after he removed the tombstone? This really makes no real sense.
Why did Michael pick Annie instead of Lynda to place under the tombstone? Lynda closely resembles his sister Judith so I don't understand this. Perhaps Michael really didn't care who he placed under the tombstone but he did have time to make the bedroom look really neat after Lynda and Bob trashed it so it really makes no sense.
After Annie hangs up the phone from talking with Laurie (when Annie spills something on herself and then proceeds to the laundry room), the movie "The Thing" just begins. But when Annie returns from putting her clothes in the wash and hurries Lindsay over to the Doyle residence, you can hear in the background the TV announcer stating to stay tuned for the horrifying conclusion of "The Thing".
When Annie and Laurie are driving and The Shape is driving behind them {take note you need a widescreen version of the film to see this flub} the mirror in the car between Laurie and Annie keeps changing its position without anyone of them messing with it.
After Michael looks in the window at Judith and her boyfriend, the camera pulls back and goes back around to the front of the house. When it first starts to pull back, if you look on the porch, hanging outside of the window are a whole bunch of electrical wires leading into the house for the lighting equipment. When he gets inside to where that window is, the wires are gone. A crew member obviously moved the wires out of sight while the filming was taking place on the other side of the house.
During the scene where Annie and Laurie are walking away from
the bush where Laurie had seen the Shape disappear behind moments earlier, hit
the pause button. If you hit slo-mo, look at the front porch of the house
directly behind the bush. You'll see that there's a man (possibly crew members)
watching the whole scene being filmed. He's standing and you can see him above
the bush.
You can see a wrench attached to Michael's hand when he breaks the car window
when at Smith's Grove. In the film, Michael's supposed to be doing it with his
bare hand. Wonder where Michael got the wrench? Perhaps from the person
who gave him driving lessons.
As soon as Laurie gets back inside the Doyle's house after The Shape is chasing
her, she tells Tommy to hurry. Look at the light switches on the wall, Both
switches are already pointing down. When she slides her fingers down over them,
they don't go anywhere (since they're already pointed "down," or off)
yet the lights still dim.
When Laurie turns around right before she runs into Brackett, the bush behind
her changes between the cuts. It goes from being untrimmed to perfectly trimmed
between the two angles.
Watch the where Laurie barely escapes the Shape and Tommy barely unlocks the
door in time. After she tells him to go upstairs, she notices the open
window/door next to her and sees the curtain blowing in the wind. In the new DVD
version, you can see a large wind fan behind the window, creating the wind to
move the curtain.
When Lynda, Annie, and Laurie are walking home from school,
Laurie says the Wallace's house is 3 houses down from the Doyle's. In the film,
though, the houses are actually shown across the street from each other.
Take notice of the scene where the gutter smashes into the window, scaring
Loomis and Brackett half to death. The rest of the movie, when we see that front
window, the gutter is nowhere to be seen, when it should be hanging over the
window. Perhaps Loomis is Mr. Fixit and he repaired the broken window and
gutter.
Keeping with the last error, the gutter cracks the window but
this crack is never seen again in the series.
When Michael is carrying Annie back to the house, her head is on the left while
her feet are to the right. Then they cut to Tommy's reaction. When they cut
back, her body is now facing the opposite way. Her head is on the right side and
the legs are to the left. This one always makes me laugh.
At the Doyle house, their front doors are filled with small windows when Annie
drops Laurie off but. throughout the rest of the movie, the door is different
and these small windows vanish.
The pumpkin in front of the Wallace house seems to change from time to time.
When Bob carries Lynda into the house, it's a normal looking pumpkin. When
Laurie walks up to the house at the end, however, the pumpkin is different. This
one is a lot wider and shorter. I never noticed this one until www.halloweenmovies.com
pointed this out to me. You really have to have the Widescreen DVD version
to check this one out. If you have a zoom on your DVD use it and you will
clearly see the difference in the pumpkins.
A continuity error occurs when Michael is stalking Tommy at the school. When
Tommy first starts to walk away, there are a few cars parked across the street
from where he's headed. There is a cut once Michael gets into his car, and
that's when all of those cars are gone. Perhaps it is rush hour in
Haddonfield!!
When Lindsey is watching the horror movie on T.V. and the phone starts to ring,
the camera starts to pan over to the phone. During the pan you can see someone'
shadow moving on the wall behind Lindsey. Someone got in the lighting behind the
camera. Woops!!!
When the kids trip Tommy Doyle, all three run off to the left.
In the next shot, only two kids run to the left while one runs toward the
camera.
As Laurie is about to escape Lindsay's house she breaks a piece of glass in
order to remove the rake that was placed there. You can see the fake glass
because it appears different from the rest of glass on the door.
When Michael is chasing Laurie at the end, she runs out the back door and to the RIGHT. But, when there is a cut to the front of the house, Laurie comes running from the left side instead. Maybe she ran all the way around the house...who knows?
When little Michael is about to kill his sister, you can see the clock on the living room showing the time as 9:25pm. As Michael walks up the steps, there are 10 loud chimes that come from the clock, signifying it's 10pm. Even with a cut, there's no way it took 35 minutes to walk up the steps!!!!!
In the scene where Laurie sees Michael behind a bush, smoke from director John Carpenter's cigarette can be seen blowing through the shot.
When Michael breaks into the car at the beginning and steals it, the window is cracked. However, throughout the rest of the movie, it isn't cracked.
After Laurie escapes the Wallace house and is being pursued by Michael, it is clearly visible that all of the lights are off both in and outside of the Wallace house. At the end of the movie, however, the Wallace house is shown with the porch lights on.
The narrow windows on either side of the front door of the Wallace house are not the same pattern on the inside as they are on the outside.
Fifteen years ago, Michael Myers brutally massacred his sister Judith. Now, after escaping from a mental hospital he has returned to his home town of Haddonfield and he doesn't intend to just visit! Michael Myers is back to relive his grisly crime again, and again...and again in pursuit of his finally prey!
Halloween is the ultimate horror movie that set the stage for all future slasher flicks. This film launched the careers of both director John Carpenter and actress Jamie Lee Curtis and was the catalyst for seven sequels. The film is a paean to October 31st with a series of shocks and jolts designed to keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat. A psychosomatic madman and murderer escapes from his asylum and terrorizes babysitters and their boyfriends in the small-Midwestern town of Haddonfield Illinois. Michael Myers (the killer) is unkillable, which allows for a surprise ending which will shock most first time viewers. Director Carpenter does an excellent job with his scar tactics and the movie score which he wrote and produced. These things never let the viewer relax and the graphic, stylish murders helped establish the slasher trend that was repeated in hundreds of future horror films. Actor Donald Pleasence portrays the killers nemesis, Dr. Sam Loomis. The screaming target who experiences the ultimate in terror is portrayed by actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers also star.
From Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide.
Low-budget chiller about psychotic murderer who struck on Halloween as a child, and threatens to do so again 15 years later. Well made, with lots of scares, plus in-joke references for film buffs. Followed by several sequels and myriad clones.
Halloween is the horror movie that is everything that a horror flick should be. It has all the action, excitement and blood curdling terror that you could ever want. I have always said that nothing beats the original and although that may be untrue in some cases it isn't the case in this horror series. This film has everything that you could ever want in a horror flick. The nudity is almost non-existent, their is very little blood shed but the kills are well-thought out and scripted wonderfully. Also, this movies doesn't overdue its murders like Halloween 5 or Friday the 13th part 5. Only three murders occur onscreen, and one occurs off screen so the film allows for character development, great one-liners and the build up of tension. This is a film that you have to own!!!!!! I give Halloween five stars ***** out of five.
