Building a Better Beast: That ‘They Will Kill You’ Talking Head

[Warning: Some spoilers below.]

Originally posted At Crafty

No matter your preferred type of visual effects, They Will Kill You has it. From sweetening fight sequences to creating a talking, demonic swine head, the Crafty Apes team stitched together a world that feels tactile, grotesque, and just grounded enough to make its wildest swings land.

Like that pig.

A hardened ex-con takes a housekeeping job in a mysterious New York high-rise to find her missing sister—only to discover its residents are part of a satanic cult.

For VFX supervisor Marc Smith, that talking head wasn’t just another assignment. “As soon as I read the script, I saw the pig at the end and thought: This is something I have to work on,” he says. “The wheels started turning immediately.”

Those wheels took him straight to a pig farm to immerse himself in minutiae. “It’s all those little things people don’t think about,” Smith explains. “But they’re what keep you from snapping out of it.”

That obsession extended to even unlikelier places. Like Costco, where Smith purchased slabs of meat to study texture and sheen. The result is a CG creation that holds up in extreme close-up, with leathery gray skin catching candlelight or cold blue tones depending on the scene.

What makes the work in They Will Kill You especially compelling is how rarely it announces itself. Smith and director Kirill Sokolov leaned heavily into practical effects, using VFX as connective tissue rather than spectacle. “I’d rather have visual effects support a shot than feature in it,” he says. “If you can hide inside the practical, it always works better.”

That philosophy meant constant cross-departmental collaboration, especially in sequences like the film’s chaotic, climactic pig fight. On set, a “pig on a stick” provided eyelines and lighting reference, while prosthetic elements like tentacles were filmed practically and later enhanced.

By the time post-production ramped up, the pig had already been in development for months, with early versions shared during filming. Its performance continued to evolve as the tone took firmer shape. Should it be sarcastic? Menacing? Darkly funny? “It’s hard to nail exactly what people want from something like that,” Smith says.

That fluidity is part of what makes the film feel so alive. Across nearly 500 finished VFX shots—out of nearly double that in progress—the work scales with the story, growing more ambitious without ever losing its grounding. Even the film’s gleefully bizarre elements, like a roaming eyeball (achieved through a mix of puppetry and digital cleanup), feel anchored in something physical.

For Smith, the project stands out not just for its technical challenges but for its collaborative spirit. After nearly two years of work, every department left a fingerprint—some were just bloodier than others.