Anachronisms
The executioner who was responsible for hanging the Sanderson sisters is wearing a leather outfit with metal spikes.
At the beginning, in 1693, when the Sanderson sisters are about to be hanged, Sarah laughs with her mouth wide open, and you can see cavity fillings in her teeth.
Character error
When Winnie is riding on her broom and pulls alongside Max in the driver’s side as he is racing away from the Sanderson home after saving Dani, she asks for his driver’s permit. As she died 300 years previously she would have no idea of drivers permits. Or even of cars.
During the adult’s Halloween party scene, Dani tries to tell her mother about the Sandersons, and Jenny, thinking she’s just on a sugar high, asks “How much candy have you had, honey?” To which Dani replies “I haven’t OD’d! I haven’t even had a piece!” This is a lie. She had a chocolate witch lollipop at Allison’s Halloween party earlier, though she could’ve forgotten with all the excitement.
The Sanderson sisters often refer to cooking with margarine. They died (for the first time) in 1693. Margarine wasn’t invented until the 1800s and wouldn’t be available as a butter substitute until 1869.
Continuity
When Max sets off the sprinkler system in the Sanderson house, he stands directly below it and gets completely drenched. When he runs out of the house, his jacket is totally dry.
After Max lights the candle, and things start to happen within the house, Dani’s hat is blown off by a gust of wind. When she puts the hat back on, her hair has been blown around. When the camera cuts to her again, her hair is back in the style it had prior to her losing her hat.
Sarah Sanderson’s hair changes from curly to wavy to straight throughout the movie.
When Max first gives Allison his number the 9 is hardly legible, but once they are outside and she returns the paper the 9 is clearly printed showing that it’s an obvious different sheet of paper.
When Max and Dani go into Allison’s house to trick-or-treat, as the conversation carries on, Allison gives Dani a large witch-shaped sucker. A few lines later, the witch sucker she holds changes to a much smaller, differently shaped sucker.
When the sisters have taken Dani from her home and we see her tied up, the ropes jump about between shots.
When Dani first finds her mom at the town hall party, the mom is “vogue-ing” with her right hand on her head and her left hand stretched out. As the camera cuts back and forth between the mom and Dani, the mom’s wedding rings disappear from her outstretched left hand.
When Billy first reanimates, his grave is shallow – only deep enough for him to lie down in – and in disarray. When they return to the graveyard, his grave is suddenly a perfectly dug hole deep enough for Dani to stand all the way up in.
When you first see Sarah Sanderson dancing with “master.” Her skirt is down, the next time you see her. The skirt is bundled up in her hand.
While in the museum, after being thrown to the floor, Max’s lighter flies out of his hand and behind the desk. We don’t see him pick it up, but once they’re in the cemetery, he has it again.
Right after they become younger, Winnie’s hair is partially covered by the hood of her shawl. In the next shot the shawl is gone completely.
When Max gives Allison his phone number her hair is parted on the left side, when he follows her outside a few minutes later her hair is parted on the right.
When Jay and Ernie are throwing toilet paper, Ernie is wearing a black hat, but in the next close up shot the hat is gone.
When Winnie is giving instructions to Billy, the broom handle is crooked when we see her from the front with a flat top of the handle. When the camera view is over her shoulder, the handle is straight and modern-looking.
When the witches arrive at the school, the clock in front of the building has just gone 3:05. Later when the kids are dancing in front of the building, the clock reads dead on midnight. Then later on, right before the witches run into Jay and Ice, Ice mentions that it’s 3AM.
After the children take Winifred’s book and are hiding in the cemetery for the first time, you can clearly see the wires holding up Mary Sanderson as she flies down on her broom towards the children.
Errors in geography
When Sarah sings her song she’s in the sky above the lighthouse along the coastline of Marblehead – one town over from Salem.
Factual errors
Before they go trick or treating, Dani tells Max that there is a full moon out. The movie is set in 1993, but the last time there was a full moon on Halloween was in 1974. The next will not occur until 2020.
The movie takes place on Halloween, 1993. The first part of the movie shows Max at school, yet Halloween 1993 was on a Sunday.
The real Salem witch trials began during the first few months of 1692, and were finished by the October of that same year, though in the movie they state that the Sanderson sisters were hanged on October 31st, 1693.
Salem, Massachusetts does not have its own bus line. The Buses that go to around Salem are buses of the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) or known locally as the T.
New Zippo lighters don’t have any lighter fluid. You have to add it yourself. Max takes one off the rack in the Sanderson house, and lights it on the spot.
Plot holes
After Winifred dies, all of the spells she had cast were instantly lifted, except for Billy’s re-animation.
When in the cemetery for the first time, Winifred mocks Max by repeating “It’s only hocus pocus”. Since he said that before lighting the candle there is no way she could have known it was said.
Revealing mistakes
When Winifred is looking through her spell book, some of the pages have the same text.
In earlier scenes before entering Max’s house, Allison’s forehead is clear. When she walks into Max’s house while the Dennison’s are calling for their parents, she has a smudge of dirt on her head.
When Sarah flies back to the house after singing her song, her costume has shifted and the right leg of her jean shorts beneath is clearly visible.
When Max first gives Allison his number, it is on the top left corner of a piece of notebook paper, where the holes are clearly visible, once they are outside and she returns the folded up piece of paper, you can tell that his number is now on the opposite side because of how it’s folded.
Immediately after “regaining” their youth, when Sarah Sanderson turns around and opens her mouth wide you can see one of Sarah Jessica Parker‘s fillings in the left of her lower jaw.
Crew or equipment visible
Spoilers
The goof items below may give away important plot points.
Continuity
As Winnie is turned to stone, the statue is two-dimensional, with her features carved into a flat surface. In all subsequent shots, the statue is suddenly three-dimensional.
After Max untangles Dani towards the end of the movie, they get into a white SUV with Allison and head straight for the cemetery. However, once they get to the cemetery, the SUV is red.
Crew or equipment visible
After the witches are burned at the school and the kids return home they enter the dinning room. They call for their parents and if you look in the glass on the left you can see crew and the pole for the mike moving.
Errors in geography
The witches take Emily in the morning, However they are hanged (supposedly soon afterwards) at night. If it only took Thackery a short time to follow Sarah and Emily to the house then it shouldn’t have taken the town folk the better part of the day to arrive.
Revealing mistakes
After the sisters suck the life out of Emily at the beginning of the movie, the girl in the chair moves her legs when they start to dance.
