I have a couple of other favorite sources of trailers, although they're not nearly as unselfrighteous as the recut examples noted by Uncle Jim.

UltimateDVD.org, which is updated quite frequently; the collection of materials on Serenity, for example, has been updated at least a dozen times since March, adding outtakes, etc. UltimateDVD also often has the European versions of trailers; the difference between the European and US trailers for HPGF is rather interesting.

Jurassic Punk isn't updated as often as is UltimateDVD, but it's a bit more stable and has a higher proportion of downloadable (as opposed to streaming) trailers.

Posted September 30, 2005 5:30 PM by C.E. Petit

"2001" as a roller-coaster ride? Oops. That's what the actual trailer tried to make us believe it was.

Posted September 30, 2005 6:20 PM by Serge

Paul LaCalandra at http://www.moondogedit.com/ seems to have the second place winner with a reworking of the Parent Trap as a lesbian love story. (His narration sounds more homemade than the Shining's.)

Posted September 30, 2005 6:26 PM by PiscusFiche

Which version of "Parent Trap"?

Oh, and could they do anything with "Peyton Place"?

Posted September 30, 2005 6:31 PM by Serge

Wow, those are amazing. I hate to think what would have happened to anyone who went to see Shining.

Posted September 30, 2005 6:37 PM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

The first version with Haley Mills.

Digging around a little more, I find that the Association of Independent Creative Editors sponsors some competition called Trailer Park, where one of the winning features was The Sound of Music as horror. Alas, no links to the actual trailer were to be found. Just bits and pieces of press releases.

Posted September 30, 2005 6:38 PM by PiscusFiche

Those are great! Thanks so much.

I always thought it would be fun to cut the romance out of West Side Story and do it as a singing/dancing documentary of gang life.

Posted September 30, 2005 6:59 PM by Georgiana

Making one coming attraction out of two movies also has potential. Esther Williams and Steve Reeve in "Hercules vs Neptune's Daughter"... "The Creature from the Blue Lagoon"...

Posted September 30, 2005 7:07 PM by Serge

I also like to visit the Apple Japan trailer site, because they have trailers for some Japanese movies

Posted September 30, 2005 7:10 PM by Edd

If I were handed the "Peyton Place" trailer, the editing tools, and more importantly the time to mess with it, a few genreficative possibilities suggest themselves:

-- An AIP-style horror film, in which Peyton Place is clearly just up the road from Innsmouth

-- A "Star Wars, The Fox Glory Years" parody, with Russ Tamblyn and Diane Varsi as Anodyne and Amygdala. This one would require enough overdubs to look like an Italian import, but isn't that what we all wanted to do to Hey, Hey, it's the Clonees?

-- A Fifties paranoia picture, in which Commie brainwashers attempt to turn the loyally repressed Peytonites into sex-crazed liberal zombies. Might be better if it were decolorized.

Posted September 30, 2005 7:31 PM by John M. Ford

"Peyton Place" with the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"... With some sprinkling of Rock Hudson/Doris Day/Tony Randall thrown in...

Posted September 30, 2005 7:38 PM by Serge

I like John's proposal for "Star Wars". Hell, Russ Tamblyn would be an improvement. Of course, anything would be.

Posted September 30, 2005 7:40 PM by Serge

The trailer for "The Core" -- the one that was produced by the studio and played in theaters -- is one of the funniest short films I've ever seen.

Posted September 30, 2005 8:33 PM by janet

After viewing the zombie West Side Story trailer, I found myself wondering if co-director Robert Wise (who died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 91) happened to see it and his heart gave out from the shock. Upon reflection, I remembered Wise's output also included Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, and The Andromeda Strain--he might have liked taking a crack at a zombie West Side Story. (Not to mention a "possessed children" The Sound of Music.)

Posted September 30, 2005 11:00 PM by Rob T.

Great job on the updates, Jim and PiscusFiche -- it's great to have the full story.

Posted October 1, 2005 12:53 AM by Matt

ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT CREATIVE EDITORS

The Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE) is an international trade association serving the needs and interests of independent editorial companies. AICE has chapters in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Toronto. AICE member companies edit over 85% of all television commercials post-produced in the U.S. and Canada, therefore playing a significant part in the over $5 billion television commercial industry.

Posted October 1, 2005 1:32 AM by James D. Macdonald

It's interesting how the different reports seem to get different ideas of how the competition is run.

Is it a free choice of starting movie, or a pick from a limited list?

Posted October 1, 2005 3:09 AM by Dave Bell

It's quite interesting watching a movie and THEN finally seeing its coming attraction. That happened to me last week when Turner Classic Movies showed the trailer for "12 Angry Men". I found myself wondering if this was the trailer for a movie other than the one I sit for pretty much every time it's on. (And one that confirms Hemingway's comment about people who confuse action with movement.)

Posted October 1, 2005 11:13 AM by Serge

I want to see a recut of Jacob's Ladder as a light-hearted musical comedy.

Posted October 1, 2005 2:16 PM by mythago

Wow, those are amazing. I hate to think what would have happened to anyone who went to see Shining.

Which reminds me of the best "Mister Boffo" cartoon of all time--showing a family sitting around a television set, mom, dad, kids, and dog--all silent and wide-eye with horror.

The caption: "Family discovering that 'Blue Velvet' is NOT the sequel to 'National Velvet'."

Posted October 1, 2005 2:20 PM by mythago

mythago: I want to see a recut of Jacob's Ladder as a light-hearted musical comedy.

Or Dead Ringers as a Disney twins caper (think The Parent Trap).

Posted October 1, 2005 3:03 PM by Larry Brennan

How about Alien set up as a sort of That Darn Cat in space?

Posted October 1, 2005 3:18 PM by Victor S.

It reminds me of the story I heard of one television listing for "The Wizard of Oz": A young girl travels to a surrealistic landscape, kills a woman, then conspires with three strangers to rob and kill the woman's sister."

Posted October 1, 2005 3:45 PM by Kevin Andrew Murphy

That "Shining" trailer is the funniest thing I have seen on the Internet in a couple years. Thanks!

Posted October 1, 2005 4:48 PM by Jerol J.

Kevin, I heard that as ...kills the first person she meets...

Posted October 1, 2005 5:07 PM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

Meanwhile, I was watching "Silver River" on TCM this morning and almost fell off my chair. There's Errol Flynn as a riverboat gambler, and in comes a man who wants to seize his various gamblng devices. To which Errol replies:

"If you're going to grab a man's equipment, you could at least have a conversation with him first."

Posted October 1, 2005 5:21 PM by Serge

How about Alien set up as a sort of That Darn Cat in space?

You can get surprisingly close to this by watching one part of Dark Star, which is often known as "John Carpenter's Dark Star" but is also "Dark Star, co-written by Dan O'Bannon, who later wrote the script for Alien". Anyway, there's a fairly comical sequence that involves an alien life form that has to be chased all over the ship. That Darn Alien!

Posted October 1, 2005 8:30 PM by DonBoy

Anyone finding useful links to the other trailers?

Posted October 2, 2005 12:04 AM by mythago

A friend of mine related this story: Someone had made a tape for him of "Alien" and "John Carpenter's The Thing", neither of which he had seen before. He fell asleep in the middle of "Alien", and woke up in the middle of "The Thing". Since the same actor appears in both, he didn't notice they were different movies until the end.

Posted October 2, 2005 4:57 PM by Joel Wideman

An observation on the initial post -- trailers indeed used to be shown after the feature, but until 1960 it was usual for movies to run continuously; people would come in whenever they got there and watch until they'd seen everything once (or more, if you had time, and especially if it was a hot day and the theatre had air conditioning). Hence the phrase "this is where we came in." A lot of theatres didn't have showtimes, though you could usually ask the ticket seller how far along things were. It didn't matter that the trailers came at the end, since a lot of the audience wouldn't be leaving then. (There were also cartoons and short subjects, and some people who'd been there for the beginning would stay to see Bugs Bunny again.)

Why did this change in 1960? Because that was the year "Psycho" was released, and for reasons that should be obvious, Hitchcock and the studio insisted that nobody be admitted after the picture started. After that, theatres started scheduling showtimes. And Coming Attractions had to move to the beginning, because most folks would otherwise leave before they came along.

The demise of the "holdover" -- staying for another viewing of the same movie -- is more recent, and is solely concerned with income -- not even so much someone sitting through Godzilla Vs. Cleopatra more than once, as someone within the gates of the multiplex seeing fifteen different movies on one ticket.

Posted October 3, 2005 4:56 AM by John M. Ford

When I went to see Serenity last Friday, I stayed to see the credits, and noticed that as soon as the credits were over -- i.e., as I was leaving -- they started up with the trailers again.

Posted October 3, 2005 5:45 PM by Lois Fundis

Lois Fundis,

I found that there were more people (well a greater proportion of people) who sat through the credits for "Serentiy" than for any other movie I've seen recently. Usually it's just us sitting there, but this time there were several groups of people.

And they didn't start the trailers again, just those ads the cycle through.

Posted October 4, 2005 10:51 AM by Michelle K

I loved the spoof trailers -- though the "glowing eyes" effect in the WEST SIDE STORY spoof felt a little like cheating. (The spoof of THE SHINING succeeded without adding special FX).

Please bring on more spoof trailers! The possibilities are endless:

-THE TERMINATOR presented as a romantic triangle set in L.A. ("Her heart was torn between two men...")

-SUPERMAN THE MOVIE presented like ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN ("In 1977, crusading reporter Clark Kent was shot in a street mugging... now the shocking truth can be told!")

-THE PRINCESS BRIDE presented as a horror flick ("Do you dare to listen as Peter Falk opens the book of unspeakable horrors known as... THE PRINCESS BRIDE??")

-PREDATOR presented as a nature documentary -- with Arnold Schwarzenegger as our David Attenborough-style host!! ("I came to find the truth about ze elusive forest creature... and discovered myself.")

And so on and so on... :)

Posted October 4, 2005 6:16 PM by A.R.Yngve

I'm still waiting to see "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" redone as a SCARY scifi alien invasion movie.

And while we're at it, can we turn "Hoosiers" into a sophomoric comedy?

Posted November 2, 2005 7:39 AM by EMPulse

It seems like making most movies into horror is the easiest, and most predictable. It's the other way around that makes things interesting. Great Idea. For those interested in this type of thing, There are usually competitions similar to the trailer contest every few weeks for artists in chicago at www.art-poker.com.

Posted November 11, 2005 8:21 AM by thorne

Two new ones making the rounds:Sleepless in Seattle as a horror flick

[Is anyone else disturbed by how easily horror and romantic comedies can be swapped?]

Also, by a group of Emerson College students: Brokeback to the Future via YouTube [downloadable version]

Posted February 3, 2006 9:27 AM by Lis Riba

Awesome thing. When I saw "the Wizard of Oz" it was a awesome threry.

Posted December 27, 2006 5:03 PM by R.J. Mack