A Fraiser trailer has been doing the rounds on the internet, garnering a million views in a fortnight.
In it, the comedy series has been remade into some sort of heist-thriller, with zoom-ins on Daphne, Niles, and Fraiser cut with suitcases of cash and guns, and with a grey filter placed over the scenes.
“I have wanted to talk to you about this all week,” simpers Daphne. “It’s about your brother...” The music clangs and the intensity rises. The trailer, which collates clips and sounds of the actors from different films, has been so masterfully put together that for 20 gleeful seconds you think the psychiatrist has truly returned to take revenge on Seattle.
“Dr Frasier Crane resurfaces after a 20-year absence, but with his return comes a reckoning that will alter not only the lives of those he once loved, but the very foundation of Seattle itself,” jokes creator MP Misc in the video’s notes.
The Fraiser recut comes in a long line of brilliant trailer remakes. Wavering between being absolutely preposterous, hilarious and also somehow convincing, the trailers are often so good that after watching them you wish you could actually go and see the film.
From Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an epic war film to The Shining as a rom-com, here is our round-up of our favourite trailer remakes.
Fraiser as a thriller
For Fraiser fans, it really does not get more perfect than this. Immaculately constructed, deeply serious, and yet... 20 seconds in, audiences will find themselves laughing out loud. Niles in a heist drama? Fraiser putting aside all his neuroses to become a gangster? Oh, how fun it would be if it were real.
The Shining as a rom-com
Those eerie scenes of long corridors, Danny with his psychic powers, Red Rum, a terrified Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson smashing through a door with an axe - The Shining had a way of lingering in the imagination. So to see the film remade as a bright and light rom-com about a guy writing a book and fostering a young boy is nothing but a surprise and a delight.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an epic war film
The success of this Holy Grail remake lies in the fact that Monty Python just cannot be earnest. The trailer works best if you’re a Monty Python fan because it’s truly ridiculous to see Arthur, the Black Knight, Lancelot and Galahad turn into epic heroes - even if it’s just for two minutes. The Black Knight scene but with the solemnity of Gladiator? Exquisite.
Mrs. Doubtfire has not aged well. It’s a strange premise - a man dresses up as an old lady to trick his ex-wife into thinking he is a nanny so he can hang out with his kids. Even if the film was a childhood favourite, as an adult it’s hard not to think about the set-up as being a little bit creepy. It makes this horror remake trailer sort of a no-brainer, but no less enjoyable to watch.
The Silence of the Lambs as a romantic drama
The love story you never saw coming - and probably didn’t want to see happen either. Serial killer Hannibal Lecter and student FBI agent Clarice Starling fall in love across the glass and bars of his high-security prison cage? This new storyline is perhaps just as horrifying as the original. “People will say we’re in love,” says Lecter in a scene placed next to a shot where two fingers touch across a file. Scary stuff.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as a horror
The 1971 version of Roald Dahl’s children’s book was so weird that it’s not that big a leap to see the film become a horror. The fact that the trailer plays one undisrupted minute of Wonka singing The Wondrous Boat Ride just confirms the eccentricity of Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones’ adaption. Nevertheless, it doesn’t make it any less fun to see the scenes of Violet, Veruca, Augustus and Mike taken to the extremes, cut with ominous horror music as Gene Wilder stares into the ether.
“One delusional man,” says the trailer. “One normal factory. One will live. Who will it be?” A predictable but entertaining twist on this peculiar children’s classic.
Back to the Future as a romantic drama
Titled Brokeback to the Future, this trailer sees Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s friendship take a turn. Now they are falling in love, and the recut has been so well done that it almost, almost, persuades viewers that there’s some chemistry between the duo.
A guitar strums in the background as the trailer says, “It was an experiment in time. But the one variable they forgot, was love.”
