Continuity mistake: In the last scene, when Mina Harker lays Dracula's body in the cathedral's altar, she kisses the vampire's lips and he turns into his human self. His face is covered with blood down from his nose, but after the kiss Mina's lips have no sign of blood. (01:58:45)
Continuity mistake: When the peasant woman gives Jonathan the crucifix in the carriage, the chain falls over the side of his palm. When he opens his hand to look at it, the chain runs between his fingers. (00:10:10)
Factual error: When Professor Van Helsing is about to perform the blood transfusion on Lucy, he says, "I've only experimented. Landsteiner's method." However, Karl Landsteiner's method was about the ABO blood types, which Van Helsing knows nothing about (in keeping with the novel, the transfusion is carried out without any mention of compatible blood groups), and the first of Landsteiner's groundbreaking articles about the subject wasn't published until 1900, three years after the movie is set. (00:59:47)
Continuity mistake: When Mina and Van Helsing are making camp in front of Dracula's castle, in the first shot, there is a bird's eye view of Van Helsing walking over to Mina with a bowl of food. In the next shot, he comes over with the food again. (01:49:13)
Continuity mistake: When Mina moves the vase of garlic flowers sitting on Lucy's bedside table, in the close-up of the vase, the bouquet is quite full and the flowers look healthy, but when Lucy grabs the vase a couple of shots later, the amount of flowers has dwindled and many of the plants are drooping. (01:12:32)
Continuity mistake: When Jonathan is dining in Dracula's castle, throughout the scene, his wine goblet keeps turning around on the table between shots: This can easily be seen from the two handles on the side, which keep pointing in different directions throughout the scene. (00:13:30)
Continuity mistake: When Mina sits down on Lucy's bed to tell her the news about Jonathan, the pillow under Lucy's back and the one next to it on her left both have a distinctive pattern. In the next shot, both pillows have a different design. When Mina gets up, the first pillows are back, but when Lucy starts noticing the garlic, the second set has returned. Then, when she smashes the vase in anger, the first pillows are there, but when Lucy yells, "It's nothing but common garlic!", a third set of pillows appear behind her back, which change into different pillows two shots later. (01:11:00)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing forces vampire Lucy to go back into her coffin using a cross, as Lucy lies down in the coffin, he lowers the cross gradually. In the next shot, he is still holding it up. For the next few shots, the cross alternates between being lowered and being held up. (01:27:00)
Continuity mistake: When Mina drops the Arabian Nights while talking to Lucy, both reach down to pick it up, and we see one of Lucy's hands touching the book on the floor. In the next shot, both her hands are at her waist. (00:19:10)
Continuity mistake: When Elisabeta is lying dead in the chapel, the collar on her dress reaches the middle of her throat and most of her neck is showing, but after Dracula drinks blood from the chalice, her collar is suddenly going all the way up to her chin and her neck is no longer showing. (00:05:00)
Continuity mistake: When Dracula is holding the communion chalice filled with blood, the priest's crucifix can be seen lying on the floor in the background, but a few shots earlier, there was no crucifix there. (00:04:35)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Seward first talks to Renfield, as Renfield inspects the spider, he is sitting in a corner and his hands are up as he dangles the spiderweb, but in the next shot, he's sitting right under the window and his hands are down. (00:24:50)
Continuity mistake: When Prince Vlad enters the chapel to find Elisabeta dead, as the camera pans toward her, the floor in front of the baptismal font is clean, but in the high angle shot where Vlad cries out and tilts the basin, two small pools of Elisabeta's blood can be seen on the floor (the same blood that is washed across the floor by the holy water in the following close-up of the font hitting the floor). (00:03:10 - 00:04:10)
Continuity mistake: When Prince Vlad tilts the baptismal font, the stains of Elisabeta's blood on the floor change position between the overhead shot and the close-up, easily seen from the cracks in the floor. (00:04:10)
Continuity mistake: When Jonathan backs away from Dracula after the vampire notices his crucifix, in the first shot, most of the chain is hidden under Jonathan's collar. In the next shot, where Jonathan is standing in front of the window, the entire chain is outside his shirt. (00:27:10)
Continuity mistake: When Dracula helps a nervous Jonathan shave, the left side of Jonathan's crucifix is hidden under Jonathan's shirt. When Dracula sees the reflection of the crucifix in the blade, the entire crucifix is hanging outside Jonathan's shirt, also when we see its reflection in Dracula's eye. In the next shot, the left side is tucked under Jonathan's shirt again. (00:27:10)
Continuity mistake: During the crypt scene, the shot of Lucy lying down in the stone coffin and the following shot where she sits up and vomits blood on Van Helsing, show dramatic difference in the depth of the coffin. (01:27:00 - 01:27:05)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing tasks Quincey with guarding Lucy, as he asks, "Do you understand me?", Van Helsing's arms are down by his side and Quincey is holding onto the hat on his head with his left hand, while the rifle in his other hand is down by his waist. In the next shot, their arms change position: Van Helsing's hands are gripping Quincey's coat and Quincey's left arm is down by his side and he is holding the rifle up by his head (before bringing it down to waist level again). (01:17:15)
Continuity mistake: When Mina is with Dracula in Seward's room, as she says, "I must know. You must tell me.", her hair is behind her shoulders, but in the next shot, most of her hair is in front of her shoulders. (01:37:10)
Revealing mistake: During the battle scene at the beginning of the film, you can tell that the group of soldiers in the background are just animatronics because their bodies remain stationary while their arms move in a clockwork repetitive manner. (00:01:45)
Suggested correction: Elisabeta drowned; the only blood we see is by her mouth. The red patch on the floor is just a shadow - this becomes apparent when it follows the priest as he moves.
No, the mistake is correct, you are confusing the blood stains by the baptismal font (sitting at her feet) with the shadow above her head: As Vlad enters the chapel, the camera slowly pans toward Elisabeta and the floor in front of the font is clean. In the high angle shot where Vlad cries out and gets up, we see two small pools of Elisabeta's blood in front of the font. In the following close-up of the font falling, we see a pool of blood at the bottom of the shot which is then washed across the floor by the holy water.
Catwalk ★