Test crowds for A Quiet Place kept laughing at John Krasinski doing mo-cap

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

A QUIET PLACE is one of the most terrifying, suspenseful and riveting horror movies of the year, and it reaped the glory by making over $300 million worldwide. Turns out it was hard to get such a nail-biting response from the early test audiences, though, as producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller recently talked about how the groups kept laughing at one particular aspect of the movie, and it was all due to the unfinished VFX work.

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The two were talking with Yahoo Entertainment when they recalled how during the screenings, audiences kept giggling at actor John Krasinski, who donned a mo-cap suit to play the alien creatures. Though that in of itself is more cool than funny, the effects work wasn't done, so audiences got to watch Jim from THE OFFICE running around in a grey suit and white Vans.

Fuller: “Whenever the alien would come onscreen [in the test screenings], people would laugh, because it’s John playing him. You can’t say, ‘Pretend that’s an alien’ to a test audience.”

Form: “As hard as you try to tell an audience, ‘Please, we understand all the visual effects aren’t in, but that will be the creature,’ it’s impossible. It just is. Someone’s gonna laugh, and it just kind of breaks everything. So it was a very hard movie to test, so we only put it up the one time and then we stopped.”

Krasinski, who stars in, co-wrote and directed the movie, confirmed on Twitter that there is a special version of the movie of him running around in his mo-cap suit, but we will never see it in the light of day. Those vaults located 700 beneath the Earth’s crust and guarded by a dragon that shoots lightning are actually tough to crack.

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Obviously, the VFX came together wonderfully in the end, with the aliens’ disgusting appearance and wonky mouths making for some unsettling creature visuals. The movie did so well that a sequel has been greenlit and Krasinski is currently working on the script, and, should everyone get their wish, he will be back to direct and pretend to be an alien in a mo-cap suit once again.