10 More Movie Special Effects Nobody Believed

Bram Stoker's Dracula isn't celebrated enough for being a mind-boggling marvel of practical effects mastery, though that's perhaps because most viewers assumed that a lot of it was pulled off with cutting-edge VFX and compositing work.

One of the most memorable shots in the film occurs early on when Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is catching the train to Transylvania. 

The train can be seen travelling through the mountains in the background, while Harker's journal is in the foreground, the train's steam inexplicably casting a shadow on the journal's pages.

It'd be incredibly easy to assume that Francis Ford Coppola cleverly composited the background and foreground elements together in post, but that just wasn't it.

After firing the initial effects team who believed the movie's effects couldn't be executed without digital assistance, Coppola hired his son Roman to do it all in-camera.

And with respect to this shot, a model train was set up in the background with a massive, 20-foot journal prop placed in front of it to give the correct perspective. The train was then backlit, allowing the steam to cast a shadow on the pages, all of it done for "real."

And that's probably why the shot still looks so incredible almost 35 years later.