After Sarah goes missing, the Lieutenant is explaining to Austin that he can still remember "the night" when Mrs. York drowned. Sarah's mother didn't drown at night, but during the mid-afternoon hours at the very latest, or possibly even late-morning. It happened directly after Mr. York's funeral, which took place most likely in the Winter season based on everyone's heavy coats and hats. Since it was still full daylight when Mrs. York ran into the ocean, at that time of year, it was not night-time at all.

During the party on February 16, we see a few inches of snow when they show the outside of the house and the guests' cars parked in the driveway. We then see a dusting of snow on the ground when Sarah runs out the back door to the greenhouse. At the same time, there's fog, frequent thunder, and lightning. This would be very odd weather to experience on the Oregon coastline especially, but it would be odd in any location to see snow, fog, thunder, and lightning all at once.

When Sarah returns home one afternoon, and goes into her bedroom, she quickly closes the door behind her. We hear the distinct sound of a lock or latch being fastened while her hand is briefly on the door knob. The viewers are to assume that she has locked the door. But when Miss Thetford then tries to come into the room, and the camera gives a close shot of the door knob while she's twisting it, we see that the only way to lock that door is with a skeleton key. There is no key in the hole, and there would have been no way for Sarah to have locked the door so quickly unless she had left the skeleton key in the hole.

In the opening of the movie, when Sarah is chasing her mother who is running toward the ocean, there are sweeping tracks on the empty sandy beach. These tracks were left by the camera crew's dolly during earlier rehearsals, when they were attempting to catch the best shots of the characters running across the beach.

When Sarah seems to catch Miss Thetford off guard, who is in Austin's study making a telephone call, Miss Thetford explains that she was making a long-distance call to her sister who lives in Grand Rapids. She explains this to Sarah as if the two had just met. Later, while Austin's reviewing the charges on their telephone bill, he asks Sarah who lives in Grand Rapids. She acts as though she has no idea. If she had known Miss Thetford her entire life, she must know where her immediate relatives reside.