Goofs for
Poltergeist (1982) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The shadow of Carol Anne's bird when Diane is going to drop it into the toilet.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At the beginning of the movie when the golden retriever is going up to each member of the family, a crew member is seen through a small crack in the door right before the dog goes into Dana's room.
  
  
• Continuity: Carol Anne holds onto the headboard to keep from being sucked into the closet. She clearly loses her grip on the headboard and lets go. However, the next shot of her sailing through the air toward the closet shows her holding a piece of the headboard.
  
  

• Continuity: The Red Chair: While Carol Anne is being sucked into the closet, we see the red chair get sucked in. Then the clown-doll gets sucked in. Then the red chair is again visible on the left of the shot.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where Carol Anne is being sucked into the closet you can clearly see a fishing line attached to the toy carriage, most likely used to pull it.
  
  
• Continuity: Carol Anne bent the headboard before being flown off to the closet, but it is intact at the end of the movie.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the initial investigation, when the ghost comes down the staircase, nothing appears on the monitor, but when reviewed, the tape does appear to have captured the incident. This is actually consistent with ghost lore.
  
  
• Continuity: When Steven, Diane and Dana are moving furniture out of the way to get into Carol Anne and Robbie's closet, the two beds have had the bed skirts sucked off while the mattresses are undisturbed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Diane encounters the beast in front of the door and yells "Nooo, don't touch my babies!" she crosses in front of it and falls down the stairs. As she passes in front of it, the creature's eyes and mouth can be seen on the front of her shirt.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: The first time Carol Anne says, "They're here," in her parents' bedroom, her lips appear to be saying, "They're all here."
  
  
• Continuity: During the early kitchen scene the doctor's coffee cup and flask change hands.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: The shadow of the rig "flying" Diane's stunt double is visible against the wall as she is propelled backwards by the shock of grabbing the doorknob.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Carol Anne is sliding across the floor, some sort of sliding device can clearly be seen under her as she goes from one point to the other.
  
  
• Continuity: The mud spots on the back of Steve's shirt when looking for Carol Anne.
  
  
• Continuity: At breakfast, the position of the glass in Robbie's hand changes while the children are arguing.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robbie's glass breaks, as Diane is serving the children waffles, the number of waffles on the plate changes but not in relation to how many she has served.
  
  
• Continuity: The amount and position of the ectoplasm on Carol Anne's head between shots when she's with her mother in the bath water.
  
  
• Continuity: At breakfast, the napkin in front of Robbie's cereal bowl disappears and is replaced by a large puddle of milk.
  
  
• Continuity: At breakfast, the glass that is about to break in Robbie's hand is leaking considerably, but the amount of milk in the glass is unchanging (considering how much milk is leaking and how much is on the table already).
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Diane bribes Carol Anne by saying they will eat pizza later, in a close-up Carol Anne says, "I want pepperoni pizza," yet her mouth is not moving.
  
  
• Continuity: When Diane and Steve are talking to each other outside the removal van towards the end of the movie, Steve's hair is alternately neat/windswept between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: After Carol Anne's abduction, when he brings the parapsychologists to the house for the first time, Steve tells them that they keep the kids' room locked at all times and is seen using a key to unlock it when showing it to them. Yet later Diane is seen briefly opening the door without using a key.
  
  
• Continuity: During the tree/abduction scenes, it is pouring rain in some shots, but not in others.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Diane is shocked by the front doorknob, when trying to escape to seek help. When she is thrown across the room, behind the staircase, a crewmember's foot can be seen pulling back suddenly in an (unsuccessful) attempt to stay out of the shot.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the breakfast table, when the glass breaks that Robby is holding, you can clearly see a string attached under the glass that pulls the fake bottom off.
  
  
• Continuity: Diane falls into the muddy pool, and has mud stains on the back of her T-Shirt. When she runs up the stairs and onto the landing, they are gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robbie is sent away and put in a cab, he and the dog seem to change places between shots. Furthermore, whilst the dog clearly gets in the back seat of the taxi, in the next shot it is sitting in the front seat.
  
  
• Continuity: As the abduction of Carol Anne starts, a toy carriage is pulled and falls over a foot away from the closet door. Later, as we see more toys being pulled into the closet, the carriage is at the side of Carol Anne's bed. The mattress on Robbie's bed changes to a different one during the abduction of Carol Anne.
  
  
• Continuity: Carol Anne's bedroom door has six panels, but in the hall way when Diane Freeling was walking, all the doors were plain with no design.
  
  
• Continuity: As the two caskets burst from beneath the floorboards in the kitchen, they are both topped with rubble and dirt. In the next shot as one of the caskets open, most of the rubble disappears.
  
  
• Continuity: When they are at the graveyard and the man is telling the Dad that they moved the graveyard where they live now, the Dad's shirt is alternately sweaty/dry between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: A casket raises in the front doorway, only surrounded by stones and grit. A few seconds later, a humongous pile of soil appears around the casket.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Mr. Teague watches the house implode, a shadow of a crew member can be seen on his suit.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robbie climbs into bed and stares at the clown (near the end of the movie), the lamp he turns off and the Darth Vader head switch places.
  
  
• Continuity: At the film's climax when the family piles into the station wagon. Robbie is seen wearing blue pajamas when he screams, "Daddy, drive away!" After Dana gets into the car, Robbie screams "The house is coming!" This time he is in the red pajamas from the previous scene.
  
  
• Continuity: The family is loaded into the car at the end of the movie, and the dog gets into the front seat. The dog then disappears while Steven frantically obtains his keys, and reappears back in the seat in the next shot as Steven climbs into the car.
  
  
• Continuity: Tangina removes her rose-colored glasses when waiting to see if Carol Anne and her mother will wake up. After they go outside, leaving them alone in the room, she removes her glasses again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the beginning of the chair stacking scene the pull in Diane's shirt is clearly visible before Carol Anne touches her, indicating multiple takes.
  
  
• Continuity: When the paranormal investigator takes his face apart in the bathroom, the reflection in the bathroom mirror changes three times: 1. The walls in the reflection are pegboard, and a bottle of "Fantastik" cleaner hangs near the mirror. 2. After a cut to an overhead light and back, the walls are no longer pegboard, the bottle has disappeared, and a cleaning brush has appeared on the wall. 3. After a cut to the sink and back, the bottle is back, but is of a different type, and a black cloth is hanging over the brush.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the chair stacking scene, just as Diane bends down to get items out of a cupboard, the chrome toaster on the kitchen counter reflects the crew switching the chair arrangement.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tangina is talking to Diane and the others about Carol Anne she tells them that she can only hear her mother's voice, but in the next scene she tells Steven to threaten to spank her if she doesn't answer them.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Diane is pulling Steve into the house right before the chair sliding scene, the garbage can Steve is holding onto gets stuck in the doorway. The hand and shadow of a crew member is clearly seen grabbing the can as Steve lets go.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the kitchen chair sliding scene, even though the camera angle doesn't show it you can tell by the way Diane was carefully placing the chair on the floor that she was putting on some sort of mechanism, and when you actually see the chair slide, one of the chair legs follows the tile line perfectly revealing that the chair leg was connected to the mechanism on the floor.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While Diane is soaking in the tub with her eyes closed, "steam" is flowing down into the tub from elsewhere in the room, instead of it evaporating out from the hot water.
  
  
• Continuity: After the steak has moved along the counter in line with a tile groove, the steak's rupture scene has the steak in between tile grooves.
  
  
• Continuity: When the bulldozer is digging for the pool, Tweety's cigar box is unearthed. This is not possible considering where Tweety was buried and where the pool is being dug.
  
  
• Continuity: When we see the hole for the pool as Steve is trying to get Robbie out of the tree, there is a section of the pool on the far right side that is damaged. When Steve goes into the pool to look for Carol Anne the same section is undamaged. Later when Diane runs by the pool to get help the section is undamaged, but just before and right at the spot where she "falls" into the pool, the section is damaged in a way that suggests multiple takes at that spot.
  
  
• Continuity: When E. Buzz grabs the chips from Dana's bed, he bites the lower right hand corner of the bag, but when he pulls the bag off the bed, he has a hold of the lower left corner.
  
  
• Continuity: When Carol Anne is feeding her fish, her bed is "neatly" unmade, but when we see Robbie looking at the tree from the outside, we see that Carol Anne's bed is made. Finally when Diane comes in and tells Carol Anne not to feed the fish that much, Carol Anne's bed is "dramatically" unmade.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: When Diane asks Carol Anne about the "TV" people. After the glass breaks and Dana runs out of the kitchen, you can see the boom mic reflecting off the picture frame behind Diane. NOTE: Upper left of Frame.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Towards the end of the movie where the kids are about to be eaten by the giant esophagus, you can clearly tell that a dummy has replaced for Carol Ann due to the fact that she was frightened to shoot the scene (see trivia).
  
  
• Continuity: Towards the end of the movie where the kids are about to be eaten by the giant esophagus, Carol Ann changes position in different shots.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Ryan is sitting by the monitors listening to music, the camera starts moving. When it comes to the point of facing straight towards the viewer you can see the camera used to film the scene and some of the lights on the set.
  
  
• Continuity: In the 'Ask Dad" scene: Just before Carol Anne starts to participate in the 'ask dad', she is just about to put a knife into her mouth with her right hand. Then, the knife is suddenly gone.
  
  
• Continuity: In the beloved breakfast scene with Diane and the kids, Diane's spatula appears and re-appears. When Robbie first says "Ask Dad!", Diane's right hand is firmly clasped around the plate of waffles. Then, in the next shot, she has the spatula in her hand again.
  
  
• Continuity: In the breakfast scene: When Diane is speaking with the kids about Carol Anne saying "They're Here", the chair to the right of Robbie is pushed to the table. Then, when Carol Anne runs around the table to watch TV, the same chair has moved out from the table.
  
  
• Continuity: At breakfast: In the shot where Carol Anne calls Robbie a "doggie-bag", Dana is playing with a waffle with her right hand. Then, Dana has the waffle in her left hand, and has a pen in her right hand.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Steve is speaking with (sweet) Jeff on the telephone about the "earthquake": In the kitchen window-sill, there is a red pot-plant. Then, the pot-plant is gone when Diane laughs about Dana giving the construction-workers rude gestures, and also when Bluto is drinking coffee and eating biscuits.
  
  
• Continuity: In the opening shot immediately following the credit of "Directed by Tobe Hooper": Jeff Shaw on the bicycle pulls out of his drive-way (at the end of a cul-de-sac) on a bicycle with a crate of beer under his arm, and he turns left. Opposite the cul-de-sac is a yellow van parked in it's driveway. However after he turns left, there is no yellow van and the texture of the lawns are completely different. It is a different street.
  
  
• Continuity: At breakfast: In the shot where Robbie is offering E.Buzz a waffle underneath the table, there is no chair next to Robbie's immediate right. Then, in the subsequent scene of Diane and the kids, there is a chair besides Robbie.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Dr. Lesh asks "Where was Carol Ann playing when she disappeared?" to which Diane responds (incorrectly) "her bedroom closet." The last time Diane - or anyone - was in the room with Carol Anne before she disappeared, she was sitting in her bed, pulling her covers up.
  
  
• Continuity: Following the scene where the tree comes through the window to take Robbie, the window and bedroom are without damage, as if nothing had happened.
  
  
• Factual errors: Near the end of the movie when the house implodes, the lights on the pillars adjacent to the front walkway stay lit. In any normal house these lights are connected to the house's electrical system and would have gone out as the house is destroyed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the opening sequence when Carol Anne says "Hello, I can't hear you," there is a leg perpendicular to Dana's body, which makes no sense.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marty goes into the bathroom after seeing his steak ooze and maggots on his chicken leg (which he drops on the floor). He goes into the bathroom and starts pulling the skin off his face - clearly a dummy was used for this scene.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The battle of the remotes at the beginning of the movie is inaccurate in that remotes require a direct line of sight to the TV to work. Also, the type of remotes used were for RCA TV's. The TV we see in the living room is a Sony.
  
  
• Factual errors: Near the end of the movie where Diane falls into the water filled hole, the skeletons from the graves float up to the surface. Since bones are more dense than water this would be impossible.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Regarding the chair sliding in the kitchen: you can see the device (a ball pulling a line) at the bottom of the kitchen table on the right.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Carol-Anne is sucked into the closet after letting go of the headboard, it's clearly a doll.
  
  
• Continuity: In the chair stacking scene, Diane pushes 5 chairs into the table. Afterward, 6 chairs are stacked (3, then 2, then 1 on top).
  
  
• Continuity: The amount of mud on Robbie's face and clothes changes from scene to scene once he's inside after the tree attack.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: SPOILER: When Steve arrives at home to find the caskets exploding out of the ground at the end of the movie, in one shot shortly after he arrives, we can see an explosive charge detonating to create the proper exploding dirt effect shortly before another casket emerges.
  
  
• Plot holes: SPOILER: The climactic scene reveals that Teague had Cuesta Verde built over top of a cemetery without relocating the bodies. But during the course of the film, the Freelings were in the process of having a swimming pool dug in their back yard. Steven even mentions to his potential clients that one of his neighbors has a swimming pool, too. With the standard grave being dug only six feet into the ground, the bodies would have been discovered much sooner if residents of Cuesta Verde were having their lawns dug up to accommodate swimming pools.
  
  

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