Goofs for
Copycat (1995) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: The "police scanner" is tuned to 147.2100 MHz - a frequency in the 2-meter amateur radio band, not the police band.
  
  
• Plot holes: Helen manages to reply to completely anonymous email.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: The number of rounds fired by Goetz in the target practice scene.
  
  

• Continuity: When the gaffa tape is place on Helen's mouth when at her apartment, it is placed very low on her mouth. Later at the toilet it is placed considerably higher.
  
  
• Factual errors: Numerous computer-related mistakes and goofs.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Cullum is talking to Hudson and Monahan on the closed circuit setup, you can clearly see that black makeup on his two front teeth.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: Right before the end of the movie, as the camera zooms in on a close up of Daryll, he leans back slightly and you can see a clear reflection off the black enamel used to create the impression he was missing part of his teeth.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The "victim" in the car at the gas station is still breathing.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the bathroom crime scene there are two candles burning. M.J. asks the coroner for the time of death, which he claims to be eight hours ago. It is unlikely that the candles could have been burning for such a long time.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: The first time that we are aware that someone is in Helen Hudson's apartment, the camera is visible for a brief second outside of her room.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Peter Foley is re-enacting the bathroom scene with Dr. Hudson, Inspector Monaghan sets off the motion detector. When Peter puts the tape over Helen's mouth, he says, "If you warn her, I will kill her." When he starts to say I will kill her, his mouth doesn't open.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Monahan comes into Helen's apartment with her gun drawn, she sees herself 'live' on the TV screen, while the camcorder is pointed toward her. The Post-It note reads "Press Play". When a camcorder is in "camera mode", pressing Play will do nothing. In order to play a recorded tape, you must first switch the camcorder to the video playback setting.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Dr. Hudson is suggesting the copycat killer (Peter Folley) will most likely mimic Ted Bundy's infamous January 15, 1978 Chi Omega slayings she makes numerous mistakes in describing that specific crime to Inspector Monahan. Ted Bundy did not wear a cast or walk on crutches to this crime scene as a ploy to con his way in, nor did he "drive up" in a VW bug. He went to the sorority house on foot and broke in, clubbing the sorority sisters as they were sleeping, before sneaking out again. Dr. Hudson also incorrectly states that all three girls died in that incident; one of the girls, Cheryl Thomas, survived the attacks.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When M.J. shoots Peter Foley, he falls to the right of a cement strip on the roof with his left hand and gun resting on it. When Helen walks toward M.J., Peter is lying to the left of the cement strip and his left hand (holding the gun) is the part of his body furthest from it.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the final scene where MJ shoots the killer in the shoulder, she is seen to cock the hammer back on her semi-automatic pistol. If she'd just fired the weapon the hammer would be back for the next shot, she wouldn't have to cock it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Peter Foley is beating up Andy outside the bar, he shoves him face first into a metal gate. The gate bulges outward, revealing that it is obviously rubber or some other soft material.
  
  
• Continuity: The length of MJ's bangs change throughout the movie.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Susan Schiffer is being stopped by the police, she says to the officer 'excuse me! I am a member of the press!' but her mouth is not moving.
  
  
• Plot holes: When inspectors Goetz and Monohan are at the crime scene of the Berkowitz copycat crime, Helen tells them to go look for a note and inspector Goetz confirms to her that they found it, and that it says "Police, let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back". They then go to her apartment, and there she is totally unaware that there was a note. She says: "What? there was a note, wasn't there? I was right!". Yet they had already told her there was.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the copycat killer does the "Dahmer" crime, he dumps the decapitated body into the river. Dahmer would've never done this, as he kept all the bodies in his apartment for further sexual gratification, then he dismembered them and submerged them in acid, sometimes he ate parts, also he boiled the heads and kept the skulls for a sculpture he was planning to do. He killed for companion, to have a submissive partner by his side, he killed men he felt attracted to and he would've never gotten rid of a body.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: In the end of the movie when MJ shoots Peter on the roof he falls down with the gun in his left hand. His left hand falls onto a concrete strip. In the next shot, when Helen passes him by and kicks away his revolver, his right hand is on that concrete strip, his left hand (with the pistol) is in the gravel.
  
  

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