The funny reason why the audience wasn't scared during the test screening of 'A Quiet Place,' the latest hit horror movie
- "A Quiet Place" had one test screening and audiences were very confused while watching it.
- According to the producers behind the movie, Platinum Dunes' Bradley Fuller and Andrew Form, the CGI wasn't ready yet to have the scary monster in the screening.
- In fact, some of the footage the audience saw was director John Krasinski in a motion capture suit playing the monster.
Warning: Minor spoiler below if you haven't seen "A Quiet Place."
John Krasinski's latest directing effort, "A Quiet Place," scored a huge $50 million opening weekend for Paramount over the weekend thanks to its frightening premise: monsters that kill anything that makes a sound.
But how would the movie be if the monsters never appeared on screen? That's what a test screening audience had to endure.
According to Platinum Dunes heads Andrew Form and Bradley Fuller, the producers behind the hit movie, going through the process of test screening "A Quiet Place" was more excruciating than usual because none of the monster CGI from Industrial Light and Magic was ready yet.
In its place were basic plate graphics of the monsters or footage where someone dressed in a motion capture suit doing the monster's movements in the scene.
In fact, Krasinski himself played the monster in some scenes.
"Sometimes John was in the motion capture suit playing the monster," said Form. "In that basement scene he was the creature down there."
Take, for instance, the pinnacle scene in the movie where one of the monsters runs away from Regan (Millicent Simmonds) because her hearing aid hurts its sensitive ears.
"When her hearing aid goes off in the cornfield you have her in the shot but there was nothing behind her, so the audience did not understand that a creature came up behind her," Form said.
So the movie went into its world premiere at the sci-fi/horror-loving South by Southwest Film Festival a month ago coming off a test screening that confused audiences and likely wasn't very scary because there wasn't much monster footage.
Thankfully, ILM delivered the monster CGI in time and the audience loved the movie. This led to a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes before the movie's theatrical release.
"If there was optimism it was self-created," Fuller said of the lead-up to the SXSW screening. "Usually when you go into a screening like that you know what you have, this was totally blind. It was crazy. We were all very apprehensive. When the movie ended and the people started cheering I put my head on my wife's shoulder and cried because it was so fraught with tension and emotion. Because we had no idea."
"A Quiet Place" is currently playing in theaters.
More on "A Quiet Place":
- Inside the surprise success of "A Quiet Place" - from a worrisome test screening to a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score
- Emily Blunt said she had husband John Krasinski "sack" her friend from the lead role in "A Quiet Place" so she could have it
- "A Quiet Place" is the next hit horror movie and will scare the heck out of you