Halloween Film Goofs

Michael-Myers.net General Discussion
1

Next time you watch the film. Think about this…


Movie goofs :rolleyes:

The movie is set in Illinois, but snow-capped mountains can be seen when Doctor Loomis is using the payphone.

Set in October in Illinois, the trees should not have healthy green leaves.

Pavement changes quickly from dry to wet when Laurie is walking home from school.

The front door knob of the house where Laurie is babysitting is on the right when seen from both sides of the door.

Although the story takes place in Illinois, all the cars have California license plates.

When Laurie sees the shape near the bush, cigarette smoke from John Carpenter’s cigarette can be seen floating into view.

While Bob and Lynda are heading up to the bedroom from the living room, Lynda trips on a dolly track and tries to ignore it. [widescreen only]

After Laurie thinks she’s killed Michael in the living room, the knife is left laying on the floor by the sofa. Then Michael attacks her upstairs with it. At the very end, the knife is seen laying next to the sofa again.

When Michael Myers, as a child, walks through the living room with the knife, the clock on the wall reads 9:40, but just 5-7 seconds later, the clock chimes 10 times.

Tommy sees Michael carrying Annie back inside the house. However, when it cuts back to the shot, Michael is carrying Annie the other way.

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.

In a close up on the phone before Lindsay answers it, someone’s shadow moves into the light.

When Laurie is trapped in the kitchen, she breaks away glass to move the rake. The shards of fake glass are clearly visible. However, when it cuts back to the shot, the shards of glass are gone.

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.

When Annie drops off Laurie at the Doyle house, Laurie walks towards the front door which is a French door in this scene; throughout the rest of the movie the door is solid.

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.

When Bob is carrying Lynda from his van he leaves the passenger door open. Later, when Laurie sees the van as she’s going to the Wallace house, the door is shut.

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.

Michael Myers is said to have killed his sister in 1963, when he was six years old. With the rest of the film taking place in 1978 (15 years later), he is 21. However, in the end credits, the adult Myers is listed as age 23.

When Michael breaks the car window behind the nurse’s head you can see a wrench tied to his hand.

2

Nice recap, Chad. Some things I’ll definitely look for during my next viewing.

3

I have noticed several of these before but a lot I didn’t! :laughing:
Cool thread Chad :rock:

4

To be fair, though the mountains are a goof, Halloween seems to take place in southern Illinois with the place names of Illinois and western Kentucky places, and southern Illinois has the Shawneee Hills and is right next to the Ozarks. Just a little bit of info that can help suspend disbelief some more.
Also, while the greenness of the leaves and grass is a bit much (more so seeing as there’s not even a few pieces of foliage with autumn color as it was filmed in Spring) sometimes full color autumn comes late, and it comes later to southern Illinois than the northern part of the state (as autumn trickles down from north to south everywhere), so there’s less autumn color sometimes in late autumn than others.
Here’s a link with peak foliage dates.
http://farmersalmanac.com/peak-fall-foliage-dates/

5

Excellent points! I never noticed most of those technical issues. I do however have plot quibbles that nag me when I watch the film now.

Laurie drops the keys off for someone to look at the Myers house. This person assumably never shows and its never metioned again.

The Strode house is established as being pretty close to the Myers house. Later when Laurie goes to the Doyle house she is driven across town to get there, meaning the Myers house is not near the Doyle residence. Yet at the climax Loomis strolls from the Myers house to the Doyle house very quickly, as if they’re on the same street.

The Hardware store brings up a few issues. The first is timing, if Michael is wearing the mask, implied from his breathing, when Laurie drops off the key before school then he has already robbed the hardware store. That means the alarm is going off all day, 8 hours at least, until the police are aware of it.

The inventory control at the hardware store is comically accurate. Unless the totallity of the stores entire inventory was ONE knife and ONE mask they wouldn’t know what was missing without counting every item in the store, while the alarm was going off and comparing it to sales records.

Why would a hardware store, that sells Halloween masks, be closed on a weekday Halloween?

6

Great post.

I always wondered why Loomis was hanging out in front of the Myers house all night and then all of a sudden he looks over and sees the station wagon? Come on Loomis!

Also in regards to the window broken at the beginning, in the Bluray copy when he drives by the girls, it looks as if the window is rolled down as to hide the broken window. I’ll have to rewatch when he’s stalking Tommy at the school, but i’ll be it’s rolled down.

7

This isnt really a goof but something that has always driven me nuts… when Annie and Laurie are in the car smoking the joint and shes like omg its my dad and they quickly get rid of it. Its not like he was standing out there looking at them and waving them to stop, couldnt they have just driven right by and not bothered stopping.

8

To compound this, wouldn’t he have smelled it instantly with his face in the window like that?

9

Here is one I always get a chuckle out of. When Michael steals the station wagon during his escape from Smiths Grove Sanitarium a wrench is plainly visible in the palm of his hand that was used to break the window. :laughing:

10

“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.”

LOL I always chuckle when he looks at his hand while stabbing his sister. Doesn’t make sense but like you said, could be a part of his sickness.

11

On the first point, I think it’s been discussed previously that girls were likely “joyriding” around town for a little while before babysitting, which could conceivably make the Doyle/Wallace houses closer to the Myers place.

The hardware store scene certainly raises several goofs. Although when Laurie and Annie get there, it is after 6PM so again, conceivably, the store could well have closed anywhere from 5PM onwards. Of course, this is all irrelevant as Michael clearly has the mask hours before so the break-in occurred in the middle of the day and if the store wasn’t open, then the police would have been there at that time, not after 6PM. Also, take note of the door behind Brackett when he is talking to the girls. The store is supposed to be closed but the sign says, “Open - Come In.”

12

Great points by all. A few other things that bother me:

  1. When Annie locks herself in the “outside” laundry room! Who has an outside laundry room in Illinois? lol! Really?
  2. How do you lock yourself IN? You can only lock yourself OUT!
  3. So how could Laurie be locked IN the Wallace house both front and back doors?
  4. Once Laurie get’s out of the Wallace house and runs back across the street, why does it take Michael hours to appear from around the back of the house when he was right behind her?
  5. How did Michael cut the phone line and come thru a window/sliding door and hide behind the couch in 2.1 seconds?
  6. At the beginning after he stabs his sister, why do his parents just stand there and look at him in the front yard for like hours?
13

Oh that’s right, the rake magically fell against the back door keeping Laurie stuck in the house! My bad!

14

I’ve always assumed that Michael put the rake there himself.

15

2 of em … one is not a goof, just something that drives me nuts.

From the moment Judith and her courter head up the stairs, it is 1m23s until Michael sees this guy at the stairs putting his t-shirt back on!. So… that ride must have only been less than a minute long… Anyone else ever notice this?

Second of all… Loomis walking towards the phone booth, one can see a train approaching, and horn sounding. Camera switches to a front view of Loomis, and the train can still be heard, but it is nowhere to be seen. Bad timing on the shoot!.


But it’s the Judith and her male friend that really bugs me!. She must be able to suck a golf ball through a garden hose!