Deliberate mistake: In the opening, the kids are looking up at the floor boards. Uniform light seeps through, but as it turns out, the house was small and swarming with an angry mob carrying torch. The light is not really compatible with that scenario, and in fact when the scene is shown later again, the lights are warmer and you can see the torches flickering. It's most likely a trick not to give away exactly what was hunting the kids in the basement. (00:01:00 - 01:11:20)
Continuity mistake: Mike Lawford is at the college library. His phone buzzes. He has both hands on a book, then in close-up just one hand and the phone itself, the other not in sight, and then both hands again. (00:04:25)
Continuity mistake: Charlie asks his dad to check the window. He gives him the "all clear" and the kid says "I love you, Dad", with the blanket up and a hand on it, on his chest. Next shot and the blanket is lower and his hand is down his side. (00:06:35)
Continuity mistake: Charlie shoots a dart with his toy blunderbuss. The dart falls on a well lit area in front of the fireplace. When he retrieves the dart 10 seconds later, the light changed. The position of the logs by the fire also changed. (00:09:30)
Continuity mistake: The mom just said bye to the nanny, and her little guy is impatient. "Where's daddy?" he asks. There are three cuts for this simple sequence, and in each the kid is in a slightly different position, hands on/off the table and with the weapon positioned differently. (00:09:50)
Continuity mistake: When the mom asks Charlie about the figure in the drawing, and he says that he "kinda" saw it, her hand changes position on the side of the tablet she is holding. (00:10:15)
Continuity mistake: During the carnival, the ghost does an evil shriek at Charlie. He lowers the hand with the camera, but when his dad calls his name, you can see his arm still bent holding the camera up, out of the frame. (00:16:05)
Continuity mistake: The crime has been reported and the police just left. Mike joins his wife, who asks him "Anything?" Look at the glasses on the table. A couple cuts later they moved to the left even if nobody touched them. (00:21:10)
Continuity mistake: Nicholas Cage is stapling the posters with his missing child (strangely enough, all the concert posters are in terrible condition even if they advertise events that happen exactly when the movie takes place). He hears his son's voice and turns around, the wind flips the poster on his hand. When he turns back to it, the poster is gone (but he still has one to attach). (00:27:00)
Continuity mistake: Nicolas Cage is chatting with his friend at work. When she tells him "Mike, listen to what you're saying", his cup turned around on its own, with the paper sleeve showing the brand to the camera. Both his and his colleague's paper sleeves move up and down the cups a few times during the conversation, too. (00:28:55)
Continuity mistake: Detective Jordan resents Mike's remark and angrily tosses his pen on the desk before pulling out a big binder with the cases. In this second shot you do see his pen, but when he tossed it was gone, not at all ending up where we see it now. (00:31:05)
Continuity mistake: Nicholas Cage sees his ghostly son through the window of a bus, and so he rushes after him. Right at the first left turn, the natural light couldn't be any more different in the two separate shots. (00:32:30)
Continuity mistake: Mike has just told his wife the crazy stuff about their son trying to reach him through bus windows and hobo street-artist. Naturally she stands up and leaves. When he says "Kristen, please?" one guy that was walking in the street disappears from the window at the cut. (00:39:35)
Continuity mistake: Mike and his wife are talking in the street. She is crying and tells him that "It's never him." Twice, with a reverse shot and a line of dialogue in the middle, a woman with a light green jacket gets on the sidewalk behind Nicholas Cage. (00:40:05)
Revealing mistake: When Nicolas Cage drops the possessed camcorder, he does it putting it on a newspaper. The movie is set in New York but the newspaper has an article talking about the Mackenzie Valley, in Canada, and of course it is where the movie was shot. In fact, you can identify the paper as the Toronto Star, Sunday September 28 edition, so also outside the proposed timeframe. (00:41:50)
Other mistake: The scene with Nicholas Cage browsing with his wife a series of pictures of missing children has a fundamental flaw; the idea is that "most" children who go missing on any day other than Halloween are found, but on Halloween the % drops to "just half." Look at the screen while Cage is saying this; it's not at all what it is shown. The cases solved in the first 'random' day (they have a red stamp on the kid's pic) are way less than 50%, not even 30%. (00:45:30)
Other mistake: To prove his point to his wife, Mike searches a database for a certain date. It's the date of their son's birthday. Cage says "on July 15", but if you look at the screen, the search is for "past 6 years, April 27." It's a double mistake, since he then does another search, which produces different results...but on screen, the date is always the same one. (00:45:30)
Character mistake: The Latino girl who disappeared and whose dad is a junkie now, disappeared "two years ago" when Mike mentions her to his wife, and "two years before Charlie" when he talks to the detective (that would be 3 years ago, then). (00:46:20 - 00:48:40)
Continuity mistake: When a nonplussed Cage and his wife drop by to talk with a drug addict, the candle on the table is at first whole, then in close-up the top is molten out of shape at the top. (00:47:00)
Continuity mistake: After she says the line about letting 'something' find her, the medium is holding the plush bear in a different way at the cut. She also never puts it down at the end of the scene, before getting to the window, where she just does not have it anymore. (00:55:45)
