Continuity mistake: When Pinhead is just about to start killing everyone in The Boiler Room nightclub, a man catches the first hooked chain that Pinhead unleashes. Yet when you look closely as you see the man holding the chain there is no hook, but a piece of wire.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Pinhead is in the church, he stands behind the table, and the candle to the right of him is straight. He then pushes the cross off the front, look at the candle, it is now on a slant then in a split second the candle is straight again as if it had never been touched.
Continuity mistake: In the first hospital scene, where a kid dies by the hook-tipped chains in the operating room, there is a point where his head just explodes. Later, when Joey opens the door, for a second you can clearly see the kid's body, still with a head.
Continuity mistake: At the end of the film Pinhead tricks Joey into giving him the puzzle box by posing as her dead father. As soon as she hands the box over he takes a knife (or sickle or whatever it is) from his belt with his left hand and poises to strike. Then it cuts to a shot from behind and he's now gripping the knife with his right hand.
Continuity mistake: At the end after Pinhead has 'absorbed' Elliot and Elliot pushes through to tell her to work the box, her hands are clean. Then she reaches for the dropped box and her fingers are bloody, causing her fingers to slip on the front of the box and stop her working it.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Joey goes to meet Doc at the Boiler Room and drives her car past his, you can see Doc's car door is open. When Joey goes to Doc's car, that door is shut and she opens it to look inside.
Continuity mistake: One of the chains reaches from the sewer and grabs Joey by the sweater during the chase scene. Every time the chains are used in the other films, they are incredibly accurate. One grabs Frank by the hand, as he grabs for Kirsty in the first film, and another effectively blocks Kirsty's way in the second, but now they can only grab Joey's sweater. [Pinhead deliberately makes the chains miss because he's just trying to intimidate Joey at this point. He can't kill her until she gives him the box.]
Continuity mistake: When Pinhead raises his blade to kill Joey, it's in his left hand. Suddenly, he's transported to the room with Elliot Spencer, and it's in his right hand in the next shot.
Continuity mistake: When Joey drives up to The Boiler Room to find Doc, it alternates between not raining and downpouring, depending on the shot. (Ex. In the shots inside the car looking out, it's not raining. In the exterior shots of the car, it is.)
Continuity mistake: When Pinhead appears in the nightclub, there's a dramatic shot revealing him, and if you look, there's only one or two people to the left of the stairs. The scene then cuts away for about a second and a half, and when it cuts back, suddenly there's a whole crowd to the left of the stairs. Far too many to appear in such a short period of time.
Continuity mistake: When Joey has the dream where she finds the radio in her closet, there are a few quick close-ups of her hand turning the radio dial. These close-ups are done with a hand double because you can see that the hand turning the dial has a clubbed thumb (sometimes known as a "short thumb" or "toe thumb"), whereas in other shots, she has a normal thumb.
Continuity mistake: When Terri goes back to JP, when he's talking about "getting this out of the way", Terri's hands go from down by her sides to nervously up by her mouth between cuts. Yes, her back is to the camera in the first shot, but you'd absolutely see her arms move, and they don't.
Continuity mistake: When Terri goes back to JP and they're talking about the girl who "helped" him with the Pillar, when JP says, "You know what I mean, right?", Terri goes from facing him to facing away between cuts.
Continuity mistake: Right after Sandy's skin is ripped off, there's a shot of the camera moving towards her face as she screams. (Right before Pinhead yells.) When this happens, you can see the chain around her left shoulder fall off right before the shot cuts. It's back on her shoulder in the next shot. It happens quickly, but it's super noticeable if you pay attention.
Continuity mistake: When the statue comes alive and kills Sandy, as she's lifted from the ground, the statue's mouth is suddenly open, but it's closed in the shots before and the shot after.
Continuity mistake: When JP sits down next to Sandy and says, "Welcome!", his cigarette goes from in to out of his mouth between cuts.
Continuity mistake: When Joey and Terri arrive at the Pyramid Gallery, after the knock, Terri's hand goes from her side to pressed against the door between cuts. Her cigarette also goes from her mouth to in her right hand in the same cut.
Continuity mistake: When JP gets his hand bitten by the rat, after he throws it away from him, there's a close-up of his hand covered in blood. In every shot before and after, there's little to no visible blood on his hand.
Continuity mistake: When Joey and Terri are talking and the puzzle-box in the statue gets brought up, in the reflection on the window, you can see Joey begin rubbing her neck with her right hand. When it cuts to the opposite angle, her hand is no longer up by her neck.
Continuity mistake: When Joey gives Terri her cigarettes, when Terri asks, "You gonna have one?", her hands go from on to off the ashtray between cuts.
Chosen answer: It's a piston. 2 piston rods are jammed through his head and they move powered by something unknown. You can see the crank shaft and part of some sort of cylinder. A piston is part of an internal combustion engine. It's part of his cenobite form since he liked cars.
lionhead