10 Real Reasons Movie Characters Seemed So Sinister
5. Lucy's Movements Were Filmed In Reverse - Bram Stoker's Dracula
Francis Ford Coppola strikes again, this time in his 1992 gothic horror classic, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Beyond the film's eye-wateringly brilliant production design and makeup, and Gary Oldman's sublime performance as Dracula, Coppola employed a fairly simple technical trick to thoroughly creep viewers out.
After Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost) is turned into a vampire by Dracula and prepares to feed on a young girl, she's suddenly repelled with a cross, staked through the heart, and decapitated by Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) and his cohort.
But if you thought that Lucy's movements as she's forced back into her coffin seem weird and unnatural, that's because they are.
Coppola actually had Sadie Frost perform the scene backwards and then reversed it in post-production, ensuring her vampiric movements seem distinct from her prior mortal ones.