Continuity Errors

In fiction, continuity is a consistency of the characteristics of people, plot, objects, and places seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time. It is relevant to several media. It has also come to mean a series of contiguous events, known the Canon, set in the same universe. Throughout the Scream film series there have been several notable continuity errors, including its timeline inconsistencies, particularly egregious in the fifth film.

Continuity is particularly a concern in the production of film and television due to the difficulty of rectifying an error in continuity after shooting has wrapped up. However, sometimes continuity errors occur in the form of post-production. Most productions have a script supervisor on hand whose job is to pay attention to and attempt to maintain continuity across the chaotic and typically non-linear production shoot. This takes the form of a large amount of paperwork, photographs, and attention to and memory of large quantities of detail, some of which is sometimes assembled into the story bible for the production.

Post-production re-dub audio issues

 * When Gale says, "Be right back" to Kenny after leaving with Dewey, her mouth is saying "Keep watch".
 * This was done to correspond to Randy's "Rules" scene, explaining Kenny's concerned face.
 * It is possible that both scenes could've been included in the re-dub, as Gale's face is not included as she exits for the door, with Dewey in frame.
 * When Sidney comes running to the house and she sees Dewey come out with the knife in his back, she screams "Dewey!" but her mouth says "no!" (01:27:23)
 * When Gale starts driving away after she hits Randy with the phone, Kenny's body falls on her windshield. At this part the camera pans to a shot overhead and Gale says "Kenny, I'm sorry, but get off my f***ing windshield!". Her mouth is not moving as she says this. (01:26:38)

Continuity Errors

 * Billy Loomis stabs Casey Becker, but her blood does not become visible until she falls to the ground. (00:10:49)
 * Director Wes Craven took full responsibility for the mistake, and re-incorporated it in Scream 2 through Stab with Heather Graham's Casey through a meta reference.
 * Tatum Riley refers to Steve Orth as "Steve Forrest", his original surname from an old draft. (00:18:05)
 * Tatum Riley attacks Ghostface with beer bottles, which are visible all over him as he strikes at her (01:06:55), but a second later, she ducks, and his costume is completely dry. (01:06:57)
 * Stunt-Double: When Sidney and Stu are fighting in the living room and they both trip over the couch, Stu's stunt double is visible and wearing a wig that is longer than Stu's hair at the time. (01:40:30)Steve Forrest Killed.jpg" was "killed last night". Original script name. ]]
 * When Neil Prescott falls out of the closet, if you look closely, you can see the hands of a crew member who was there too, pushing items out after him. (01:42:42)

Real-life mistakes

 * Factual error: At the end when they are loading Dewey into the ambulance on the stretcher, it is standard procedure to put the patient neck brace when they receive any type of unknown injuries (stab wounds) to their back as Dewey did - it was notably absent. (01:43:23)
 * Factual error: During the scene where the group of friends watch Halloween (1978), one boy says something like "Why do they do that? The blood is all wrong. It's too red!" The problem is, during that part of the movie, no blood is shown or even implied. Bob is just pinned against the wall. (01:12:27—01:27:30)

Assumed, but not actually mistakes

 * In the garage, Tatum slams the fridge door into the killer's face. The killer falls over, with, and it opens fully. But in the next wide shot of the killer getting up, the fridge door is closed. Tatum's hand is hovering between these two shots, showing she shut the fridge door after. (01:06:42-43).
 * When Ghostface is trying to kill Tatum in the garage, she tries to go through the doggie door. From the outside shot, she is out of the door from her head to below her breasts, From the inside shot, a second later, her head is only piercing outside the door, while the rest of her body is inside. However, it is between frames as she is moving in-and-out, trying to slip out faster. (01:07:04)
 * When Stu Macher surprises Sid after she's come in from outside and locked the door, he "tries to stab her" with his left hand, misses, and hits the door right next to the chain in closeup. In wide shot (very quick shot) when Sid legs it, Stu in costume is holding a very badly bent knife in his right hand, nowhere near the chain. (00:29:08)
 * Explained: Stu did not intend to kill Sidney here. He even gives her an opportunity to fight back after slowly raising the knife. Everything was planned, including suspicion on Billy. He later explains that they intended to lure her to the party right at the end, to reveal the truth. It is not a stretch to assume the knife he used to strike at the door was rubber.

Year mistake
In the second Scream film's cold opening, the theatre screening for Stab shows the date "April 12, 1997" followed by "09:50" (the actual date and time of production/shooting).

The date is inconsistent with not only the events of the film by year and month, but also the time of the screening. In-universe dialogue later confirms the screening for Stab occurred at midnight. The previous film also shows a blurred background calendar of April 1996 in Himbry's office (Date of Filming). An in-frame calendar also shows the Macher calendar as showing September 1996 (and all sequels re-confirm this timeline). In the film's dialogue, Maureen Evans overhears another movie goer state, "Those kids got killed in California a couple of years ago". Later, Gale acknowledges the time passing of several years to Cotton and Sidney, regarding "looking back on the last few years". The film takes place in approximately 1998, and slightly into the future of its release date by approximately five months.

Bad continuity perpetuated: The fifth film, produced by Radio Silence, accidentally perpetuated this incorrect release date year of Stab as an "Easter egg".

Fans have rectified this with the idea of Stab being given a limited release at the end of 1997, with its official, wide-release, following an exclusive night of preview screenings at a theatre on Thursday night in June 1998. (It appears Maureen's screening is also not the only screening that night, as exiting kids are seen with the costume, excitedly revealing their thoughts about the film).

Continuity Errors

 * Maureen Evans receives a different order than what she asked for.
 * When the killer is attacking Cici on the balcony, you can see blood on Cici's back before she is even stabbed and both times she is stabbed, the knife that comes out of her back has no blood on it. (00:33:20)
 * Visible crew: If you look really close in the background as the killer throws Cici off the balcony, you can see someone sitting in a tree, wearing black, with a camera.
 * When Chief Lewis Hartley writes "Cici Cooper" on the chalkboard, between the closeup and wideshot of him writing, the handwriting and location of his writing dramatically changes, and the words "Maureen Evans" and "Phil Stevens" above, also change too. (00:41:20)

Character mistakes:
 * Aliens Quote 1986.gifRandy Trivia Fail: During the scene in which they are all arguing whether or not film sequels are better than the original or not, someone says Sigourney Weaver's classic line from the movie sequel Aliens (1986): "Get away from her you bitch". Randy makes a smart comeback and tries to correct him by saying "I think the correct line was 'stay away from her you bitch'. This is film class, right?" Wrong — the first guy was actually right.
 * This line may initially appear unconvincing for the Randy character, being a big movie buff, but he also detested sequels; it shows the character is slipping, inadvertently foreshadowing his demise later in the film. It also signals he is less trivia savvy about sequels in general.
 * Explanation: Jamie Kennedy decided to improvise as Joshua Jackson actually made the initial mistake by saying the wrong line, causing a different mistake. (00:16:25)

Scream 3 (2000) mistakes

 * "Ten more murders and we'll have a calendar" stated by J. Wallace is contradicted by the fact that there has already been three murders, so it would be nine more murders and they will have a calendar. Wes Craven noted this in the DVD commentary.
 * Angelina also states, "Two people are dead," to Tom Prinze at Jennifer's wrap party, but three people are known to be dead at this point.
 * A reporter states Cotton Weary shot his cameo for Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, but in the opening Cotton is complaining about being asked to do it, and wants more money to make it happen, so he has not actually shot it yet. A possible re-interpretation of this is he was asked to have a more extended scene or a different cameo following one of the re-writes (in-universe).
 * Roman threatens Cotton with killing Christine if he does not reveal information about Sidney's whereabouts. Due to his connections, Cotton would apparently have this information. However, the logic of Roman finding Sidney through monitoring Dewey's calls with a scanner make threatening Cotton and Christine pointless, as Dewey would contact Sidney regardless.
 * The only other way around this is to believe Roman's accomplice, Angelina (before the studio rejected the idea during filming), stole Dewey's phone from Jennifer at her wrap party. This makes the whodunit far less convoluted.
 * There are two assailants during the set-attack of 34 Elm Street. It is impossible for Roman to play with the door from one end of the room and grab Sidney from behind at the other. Also, when Sidney flings Ghostface from the set structure, causing a huge landing fall onto the bed, Ghostface manages to be in Maureen's set-room mere seconds later, to whisper to Sidney to come into the room. We later learn this is not Sidney losing her sanity, as Roman acquires Maureen's voice through a voice modifier, so how is he able to teleport between two different places? The only explanation is that Roman is superhuman, as Randy suggests, or he had an accomplice (Angelina).
 * Two voice changers and costumes: Roman has two voice changers and costumes, noted when Gale finds both in the final act, but Ghostface (Roman) attacks later, and Roger L. Jackson can be heard still under the mask. If he was a lone killer, he would not want to implicate himself or give himself away with revealing his voice modifying technology. This is further evidence of a second killer, and an accomplice.

Assumed, but not actually mistakes

 * Power Outage: While the power goes out at Jennifer's, the fax machine is a backup power generator. Wes Craven explains this in the DVD commentary, pointing to the backup power light.
 * Roman's pulse: Wes Craven explained in the DVD commentary that he tried very hard to find a way for the dialogue to explain how Roman managed to slow his pulse down to a point where it seemed like he was not alive. He demonstrated it as proof of it being a real thing, but could not find a way to explain it in words. Fans mistake this to be a plot hole, as if he were alive, his pulse would be evident.

Timeline and Other Mistakes

 * Ghostface claims Sidney is in all films but Stab 8. Sidney was only in the original Stab trilogy, according to the previous film. She threatened to sue if they continued to use her in subsequent films.
 * Samantha Carpenter is too young to be Billy Loomis' daughter at age 23. The timeline is wrong by one year (two years if the film is set in 2022).
 * The film simultaneously suggests it takes place in both 2021 and 2022.
 * Principal states classes are cancelled tomorrow, but the next day is Saturday, if Tara's attack corresponds to the landline date.
 * Vince Vaughn is Stu Macher in Stab, yet a completely different actor appears as him in a Stab scene that Mindy watches.

Plot Holes

 * Sidney's Threatened Lawsuit: Sidney's lawsuit, threatening the creators for using her character after Stab 3: Hollywood Horror in the continuation of the Stab franchise is ret-conned. It appears she is in "every movie but the last one", according to "Charlie" calling Tara Carpenter. However, the reason for her lawsuit is now unaccounted for, effectively creating an unintentional plot hole.
 * The suggestion that Sidney threatened to sue based on using fiction is inconsistent with her story arc in Scream 4 (2011). In context, Jenny Randall is stating that, because Sidney could no longer appear, the Stab franchise became exaggerative with fiction, not that they were intending to re-use real life elements with Stab 4, as no real life murders occurred at that time.
 * A possible resolution to this is that the studio was going to remake Stab (1998) in the mid-2000s. But because Sidney bought the rights to the original Woodsboro Murders (1995—1996) killing spree through her self-help book, Out of Darkness in media format, they were held off from doing so, hence Stab sequels were made instead, akin to the Saw franchise.
 * Judy Hicks is a character in a "shitty, inferior sequel". This is an attempt to be a meta joke at Scream 4 (2011), but is inconsistent with other references of the Stab film series in the Scream universe, as seven Stab films had previously been released (the most recent being Kristen Bell as Ghostface, Chloe). This makes the only conceivable sequel to be Stab 8 (2021; continuity error release year).
 * However, it is obvious from the dialogue, it was intended to be a previous iteration, as Wes Hicks would state Stab 8 forthright, as it is so recent "it came out last year", whereas all previous sequels were a decade beforehand.
 * As per Mindy's idea of Requel rules, nobody questions whether the killer the killer will strike a character who appears in the supposed "worst Stab of all".

Character Mistakes

 * Sam Does Not Recognize Stu's House: Samantha Carpenter expresses shock that Richie Kirsch has not seen Stab (1998, dir. Robert Rodriguez) yet is unable to identify Stu Macher's original house, 261 Turner Lane, when she, Richie and Tara locate Amber's location. It is also extremely unlikely the final act of STAB (1998) did not include a replica of the house, as another replica of it is seen as a "hot set" location in Scream 3 during the production of Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro (cancelled 2000 Sunrise Studios project, dir. Roman Bridger).
 * Sam Forgets Billy and Previous Killers' Motive: She expresses to Mindy during the sit-down at Martha's house, "Come on, it's just a movie", in response to the idea that the killers are Stab fanatics. From a dialogic perspective, it makes very little sense that Samantha questions this motive: Dewey Riley stated in the previous scene, "Your killer's obsessed with the Stab movies. right?
 * It also makes little sense from contextual background information: she attended Woodsboro High as a freshman and sophomore when the second and third Stab-A-thon (2010-2011) occurred, the previous killers also had a Stab fanatic, Charlie Walker, who was two grades above Samantha in high school. Samantha also acknowledges his existence on the car trip to Woodsboro. Most importantly, her father, Billy Loomis' s very motive for killing was inspired by horror movies.
 * Inside Stu Macher's House Where Your Dad And Stu Killed "Everyone": Sidney warns Sam to leave 261 Turner Lane. "You're in Stu Macher's house, where your dad and Stu killed everyone. Someone planned to get you there. You need to get the fuck out, Sam." But they only killed one person inside the house, Dewey's sister, Tatum.
 * The line would have also worked better if Sidney stated "You're in Stu Macher's house where your dad and Stu killed my best friend, Tatum Riley. Tatum was Dewey's little sister. Whoever brought you there wants you there, and wants your little sister there too."

Continuity Errors

 * Class Cancelled on Saturday: The film begins on 23rd September, 2021 (according to Tara's landline) which falls on a Thursday. But the new Principal of Woodsboro High (voiced by Drew Barrymore) states that "all classes are cancelled tomorrow due to public safety concerns", despite the next day being Friday 24th. Meaning, all classes would be suspended on Saturday 25th, when class would not take place regardless.
 * Samantha Carpenter claims her sister was attacked the night before her attack. The reporter's voice also claims it occurred "one night" before. Though if this is true, this contradicts the Principal of Woodsboro's message.
 * A possible re-interpretation of this is that the attack took place one working day before Sam's attack, and the news reporter followed this along, while Sam exaggerates this to Dewey for dramatic effect (similar to Sidney "where your dad and Stu killed everyone" or Woodsboro holds classes on a Saturday.
 * Logically, the 23/09 date is simply the date of filming, though its explicit on-screen appearance leads people to believe it may follow in contingent with Stu's calendar in his house from the original film which was dated as "September 1996", as the reporter at the end also states it has been "twenty-five years, almost to the day".
 * Another issue with the events of Sam's return being the morning after Tara's attack is Amber hosting a party on Sunday, the night before school (unless classes were suspended once again). Though this may align with it originally being a memorial for Wes, which turned into a party, as Sunday is a religious day.


 * Unfinished CGI: Before Ghostface (Richie) goes to knife the board column in attacking Sam, it appears to be one special effects shot where he is not wielding a knife, it simply flies mid-air on its own.Continuity Column Collage.jpg
 * Ghostface Three Board Knife Column Position: When Sam is assaulted at the hospital the first time, Ghostface misses Sam with his knife, which gets stuck on a poster on the board. By mistake, he "stabbed" the third column of the text on the poster. The knife, however, gets stuck in the first column instead, then he pulls him out from the third column again, resulting in a hole in the second column. (00:24:00)
 * Amber Grows 7 inches With Rib-Cage Immunity and Mass Muscle Strength: The film does not explicitly reveal Amber wore a bulletproof vest when shot by Dewey Riley; it has been discerned by audience members, though Ghostface briefly flaunting the bulletproof vest for a moment. Even still, the idea that her ribcage remained in tact after taking gunshots from such a close range is inconceivable.
 * When killing Dewey, she is able to regain momentum somehow in his distraction, and have enough strength to lift a stabbed 50-year-old male trained sheriff with full body mass weight through wielding a knife, despite her small stature out-of-costume and weighing around 180 pounds. She is also noticeably much taller in the scene (as it is a stuntman), while in the final act, it appears every other character is taller than her, Sidney included. Due to previous films, we know Sidney's height is much smaller than Dewey's, marking further confusion by fans about the scene.

Unexplained plot threads

 * Liv McKenzie states she cannot visit their friend, Tara Carpenter at Woodsboro Hospital. It is a Red Herring to draw suspicion on her, but it is unexplained why, later on, she did not choose to meet her friend, who was stabbed seven times and was also her co-worker.
 * Why does nobody seem to know that Amber Freeman is an occupant to a former murder house?
 * Sidney Prescott is married to Mark Kincaid and has several children with him. It is unexplained if they dated between Scream 3 and Scream 4, then broke up, or if Sidney did not disclose her relationship with him during Scream 4, despite Rebecca, her assistant and publicist, stating she was celibate and "never got laid", implying she was single.
 * Where was Martha, Mindy and Chad during the events of Scream 4 (2011)?
 * If Sidney Prescott was forced to stay in Woodsboro due to being a potential material witness during Scream 4 (2011), it appears almost certain she would have chosen to stay with Martha Meeks, who she hugged and appeared to be fond of and close to in Scream 3 (2000) over her estranged aunt and cousin, Kate and Jill Roberts. It appears that Martha and the twins must have left before returning to Woodsboro.

Summary

 * Sam, Billy's daughter, is 5 years older than 18-year-old Tara, a high school student (Sam is 13, while Tara is 8 when Mr. Carpenter leaves); the reporter at the end confirms it has been 25 years since Billy's death at 261 Turner Lane.
 * She is maximum 23 in-dialogue despite this. Amber Freeman also confirms Sam left on her 18th birthday, and Tara confirms she is back "five whole years" later with strong emphasis, and repeats this line.
 * Fans have rectified this by suggesting Samantha is 24, born 9 months after his murder, conceived shortly before, while Tara is 19 or close to 19 (repeating a high school grade), and Amber additionally exaggerated Sam's departure, which occurred when she was closer to 19, repeating a high school grade. However, all three instances have to be true, not one or two.
 * This conflicts with information confirming the events is minimum occurring in 2021.

The fifth film declares the Legacy Murders of 2021 as almost exactly near the 25th anniversary, at least according to an end-of-film reporter, and the Stab film is a digital release in 2021.

A calendar also indicates it is September (though calendars and tickets are inconsistent with said on-screen events). This presents many issues in the story, including the ages of certain characters.

The script was written in 2019 and the movie was made in 2020 (explaining why Samantha Carpenter is indicated to be 23, originally born in 1996 most likely, returning 5 years later). But there are ways to resolve this issue with two retcons.

It is possible Amber exaggerated Sam leaving on her 18th birthday. It is also possible Samantha misremembered and was looking for general gifts, and not Christmas gifts, at a much later date (closer to her 14th birthday). Or she looked for leftover Christmas gifts in January 2011, the year of Tara's 8th birthday (most likely).

Debunked idea: Close to Maureen's anniversary
The film could not be 25 years since the Maureen Prescott Murder of October 1995, the definitive beginning of The Woodsboro Murders. This is highly unlikely. While Gale references this as being the first Ghostface killing that was copycatted in Scream 2 with Maureen Evans, it is the 1996 near and actual anniversary succession that is considered the actual Woodsboro Murders, and the references are clearly callbacks to the 1996 events.

Additionally, Stab (2021), the eighth film, is already available as a digital release in 2021 on Youtube, which would not be exactly near September 2020 (25 years after September 1995). However, over five years after Sam's birth would would be late-2002 and early-2003 approximately, the graduating high school class of 2021, coinciding with this idea. The reporter's comments of being close to the exact anniversary gives a difficult timeline for other things. Finally, Neve Campbell confirmed the film takes place ten years later, and the fifth film confirms the fourth is set in 2011, in-dialogue.

In the most likely instance, the events of the film are supposed to take place almost 25 years after October 1996. This opens up several issues:

Sam and Tara's five year age-gap goof

 * The film confirms Sam Carpenter as Billy Loomis' secret lovechild. This easily works if you consider Billy conceived the child shortly before his death, making her date of birth a maximum of August 1997. However, other dialogue complicates her sister's age.
 * Dialogue confirms she is approximately five years older than high school senior Tara Carpenter. At 18, Sam abandoned Tara, 13. (Sam is 18 in 2015, but also this could have occurred in 2016, close to 19.)
 * She is mentioned to have "ghosted" her family on her 18th birthday, according to Amber, but this may simply be an exaggeration by Amber for the others to dislike Sam and build tension to frame her as the new killer. This does not fix several other errors though).
 * If Amber exaggerated or lied, this is not the first time in a Scream film a character discusses something that is factually incorrect (Randy "corrects" a student who states a line from Aliens, "Get away from her you bitch". In actuality, Randy is the incorrect one, his correction "Stay" is a goof by the production when they were rehearsing lines to get the other actor to understand dialog, causing roles to be switched. In this instance, Amber could also be false for suggesting Sam left right away, possibly intentionally.)
 * At 13 in December 2010 approx., Sam discovered her birth origin, and Tara's father left when she was 8, further confirming they are 5 years apart in age. Therefore, if close to the October 1996 killings, Sam has just turned 24 years old one or two months prior. So Tara is 18 turning 19, one year above a high-school senior age.
 * To resolve this, it is possible Tara repeated one year of high school and is 18 turning 19 in early-2022, one year above her peers (despite Ortega being 3-8 years younger than her cast mates portraying high schoolers in the same group, so therefore it is a mistake by the production).
 * It is also possible the Christmas gifts were leftovers in January, and this occurred in 2011, the year of Tara's 8th birthday, having rounded the age her father abandoned her. (It could also be that they were forgotten gifts at a later time period in early-mid 2011, though this is unlikely).
 * It is also possible Sam misremembered the timeframe of her legal father's abandonment (but that seems unlikely).

Resolution of age issues

 * Sam Carpenter is 24, born in July 1997 (despite being definitively referenced as 23), and Tara is (almost) 19, they have a six-year age difference.
 * Tara's birthday is revealed on a wristband. She was born December 14, 2002.
 * Amber Freeman exaggerated Sam's abandonment. She was closer to 19, possibly after graduating, if she repeated a year due to her teenage troubles.
 * Left-over Christmas presents theory: Mr. Carpenter left "that night" in January 2011, the year of Tara's 8th birthday (but not no-where close to it, as Tara would be born in late-2003). This is a case of extreme rounding. Tara would have only been 7 for a few months at best, nonetheless, it still is the best possible way to rectify this issue (and people do round life events based on the year of their birthday, even if it is a year-end event. However, Radio Silence have not given a confirmation or explanation on this).

Stab (film series) changes in Scream 5

 * The fountain scene (with Kirby)'s inclusion would have changed the motivation for why Sidney threatened to sue the studio. It originally appears to be a legal Life Rights Agreement issue (meaning they cannot use Sidney for any purposes at all).
 * From the (somewhat revisionist) writing development of Scream 5, it is most likely a story/publishing dispute in media entertainment form. Richie Kirsch makes a strong point that Stab 8 is Sidney's first non-appearance in the franchise.
 * A story/publishing rights issue in entertainment form would suggest Sidney won the rights to tell the original story of Stab in an on-camera, re-made film or television series format. Her motivation may have been to obtain the rights to adapt Out of Darkness to film (if she chose to do so).
 * The idea of Out of Darkness as a film is mentioned by Rebecca in Scream 4. (In the screenplay, however, the concept behind Rebecca's reference is to show that Sidney is not an opportunist who seeks to create a money based on a self-help novel. This idea, however, may corroborate this revisionist story element in Scream 5 to explain Sidney's desire to sue).
 * Furthermore, Scream 5 does not indicate Sidney chose to adapt Out of Darkness in media form. But it is possible she simply gained ownership rights with false intentions to re-adapt, but prevented any measures taken to do so.