Despite looking very real, the scene in which actress Dakota Fanning impales a live ground beetle on a fishing hook as bait, an apparent act to imply her mental disturbance, was completely fake. According to the American Humane Society's "No Animals Were Harmed" production database, the director and props department actually went to great lengths to ensure that the ground beetle wasn't physically harmed. In the scene of Emily and David fishing, Emily picks up the wiggling beetle and puts it on a fish hook. As she does this, a close-up shot shows liquid and guts coming from the insect. The props department originally made a fake insect for this scene, but it didn't look realistic to the director. As a result, a total of 24 ground beetles were brought in. For the beginning of this sequence, trainers used a real beetle with a fake blood sack attached to it very carefully with surgical adhesive. Fanning was taught how to handle the insect and where to place the hook without harming the beetle. This avoided an act of animal cruelty, and also spared Fanning, who was only a child at the time of filming, the act of having to really gut a live beetle. It was also considered quite innovative at the time for the props department to have been able to work to set up such a scene without harming the beetle.

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