In the post-apocalyptic world that is the setting of A Quiet Place, a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing. In addition to a variety of general effects work ranging from set extensions and paintouts, ILM was tasked with creating the monsters that are terrorizing what’s left of the human population on Earth.
Director John Krasinski had enlisted ILM to bring the blind, shrieking creatures to life but when the decision was made to push the design from merely scary to something truly terrifying with just one month left before release, it was the ILM team led by visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar and animation supervisors Scott Benza and Rick O’Connor who had to deliver that terror in record time.
In the end, collaborating with Krasinski ILM’s design team came up with the stuff of nightmares, a creature that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up the moment you catch a glimpse of it on-screen. The reptilian-like humanoid creature was quadruped with a large head and a lobster-like exoskeleton. It had no eyes, horrific rows of sharp teeth, and claws that could rip a person’s limb clean off.
In the end, the revised design was a tremendous success and supported Krasinski’s vision amping up the fear factor and tension in every scene it played in.
