Nosferatu Used a Lot More Live Rats on Set Than You Might Guess

When Robert Eggers set out to make his critically acclaimed Nosferatu, he was determined to use as many practical elements as possible, which meant using an ungodly amount of live rats – 5,000 to be exact. The production went to great lengths to not only ensure that all of the rats were accounted for once they were done shooting, but that their safety was preserved during filming. Craig Lathrop, the film’s production designer, revealed to Variety that “The rats. None of them were lost. We found all of them. They were all there. We built these plexiglass barriers so that the live rats would be in a controlled area. In the scene on the street, the horses are on one side of the plexiglass barrier, and the rats are on the other, so that the rats wouldn’t run underneath their feet and get squashed, so nobody would get hurt.”

Even so, that still wasn’t enough rats for the film, so Eggers and his crew had to supplement the real-life rats with computer-generated ones. Lathrop elaborated on the process of blending the practical and digital elements as follows: “We built half-meter square mats where we had fake rats that we spread all over the ground. We had the live rats in the foreground, and behind them were the rat mats that effects came along later and animated.” It’s hard to imagine why 5,000 live rats wouldn’t be enough for any film, but those who’ve seen Nosferatu surely know why that many rodents were necessary.

[Related: Every Robert Eggers Movie Ranked, Including Nosferatu]

Eggers’ dedication to authenticity didn’t just apply to the animals he used for the film but was employed in nearly every aspect of the production, from the six hours of makeup Bill Skarsgård had to endure to transform into Count Orlok, to the hyper-detailed sets used to replicate the 1830s European setting. While only a handful of real locations were used for exteriors because many existing castles have been refurbished to the point of looking modern, the production went the extra mile when it came to building interiors on soundstages to get just the right look, going so far as to hire a specialized company from Italy to create custom wall tattoos. Lathrop told Variety that the tattoos were “very thin. But when you put it on the wall, all the texture comes through and goes over the imperfect surfaces, and it turned out really well. I thought that’s the way the audience should feel when you see it, and feel awe.”

While many Hollywood movies have employed more and more CGI, Eggers has spent his career using as little digital enhancement as possible, though he does admit that there are times when it’s necessary. The filmmaker told Polygon “If you’re making a movie today at a certain scale, there’s no way you can do it without CG, just because of modern health and safety stuff, and the cost of labor, and unions and whatever.” Still, as filmmakers become ever more reliant on computers to polish the visual elements of their movies, Eggers’ commitment to the real and the tactile is a breath of fresh air, producing work with a singular aesthetic.