The sensors used by the scientists to detect the presence of the creatures make the same sound as the motion trackers in Aliens: O Resgate (1986).
Griff internalizes much of his frustration with his employers before eventually letting loose, but the part allowed Anthony Carrigan the chance to dive deeper into physical and silent comedy. "It seems like it's simple, but you really do need to create this body language that is telling a story. So I watched a lot of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin," Carrigan said.
The unicorns make the same noises, and hunt in the same way, as the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. Certain shots, and kills, are virtually identical to scenes from the movie.
Alex Scharfman happened to initiate the casting of Jenna Ortega right before her smash hit Netflix series, Wednesday, launched her into the stratosphere of the industry. "We sent [Death of a Unicorn] to her the weekend before Wednesday premiered [in November 2022]," Scharfman told The Hollywood Reporter. "So I don't know what we would've done if we didn't get Jenna. It's such a hard role, and she does such an incredible job with it."
Writer-director Alex Scharfman extensively studied unicorn mythology and folklore, revealing that he went back to Roman historians and the Old Testament Bible while researching the film. He also intensely examined the unicorn tapestries seen in the film. They're real and currently reside in the Met Cloisters in New York City. "I grew up around New York in the suburbs and went on field trips to the Cloisters Museum where those are held and maintained," Scharfman recalled "They must have been buried in my unconscious, because at some point I forgot about them but then when researching the movie, I came upon them again and I was like 'oh right, those things!'" These tapestries, which were made by an unknown artist at the turn of the 16th century, and then resided in an aristocratic Parisian home until nearly being destroyed in the French Revolution, became a North Star for everything in the film. Jenna Ortega even said they were a "cheat sheet" for understanding their movie.