10 Movie Scenes With Hidden Tricks You Totally Missed

The Matrix, as you all are well aware, changed a lot about filmmaking when it landed in 1999. So much of the movie was memorable and whilst some of the CGI effects of the original trilogy have dated over time, some effects still work because of the use of practical wizardry.

One scene in particular that always stayed with me was early into the film where the Agents interrogate Neo. Using the power of CGI they remove Neo’s mouth from his face so that he can’t scream and - disgustingly - unleash a bug onto his body that crawls inside of his belly button.

But it wasn’t all CGI.

The effect required some truly chilling visuals to hit home, including the bug wandering around inside of Neo’s stomach, pushing against his skin. Instead of doing everything digitally, the production team on The Matrix built a very realistic animatronic of Keanu Reeve’s torso using the actors’ body to create a cast. The bug inside of him could be controlled remotely, to give it that squeamish look in both the implant and extraction scenes.

If it gave you nightmares before, then looking up behind the scenes footage of the realistic headless and limbless torso of Keanu Reeves with the remote controlled bug inside certainly won’t help.