Trailer re-edits are one of the most entertaining breeds of copyright infringement I’ve seen so far. It’s where ambitious editors remix, re-edit, parody, spoof or mash-up footage from existing movies to create clever new fake trailers. In celebration of this fine tradition, I have painstakingly combed over every single movie trailer redux I could find, and compiled a completely biased list of the Top 10 Best Movie Trailer Remixes Ever. In order from least awesome to most awesome, here they are:

10. Brokeback to the Future

Creator: Chocolate Cake City



This redux gives Back to the Future a brand new plot, complete with Brokeback-esque sexual tension between Doc and Marty. It’s a delightfully awkward look at what we all thought was just your average cross-generational time-traveling professor/student relationship. This one loses points because the main joke is pretty much as sophisticated as “LOL HOMOS,” which is, like, so 1985. Additionally, thanks to this trailer, everybody else was “inspired” to make their own Brokeback-themed trailer edits, and subsequently tired out the joke.

9. How Scarface Got His Groove Back

Creator: Steven Kenny



Editor Steven Kenny manages to turn Scarface into a lighthearted romantic comedy about a down-on-his-luck bachelor named Tony. It’s understated genius. The only thing ruining it is the garish, unprofessional title screen at the end.

8. Titanic: The Sequel

Creator: Robert Blankenheim



This one makes the list out of its sheer ambition. Editor Robert Blankenheim must have combed over hours and hours of Leonardo diCaprio movies to piece this one together, and anybody willing to do that deserves some kind of trophy. I can believe that Hollywood really would want to make a movie like this. Using clips from multiple movies means it looks like Leo is always changing ages, which is kind of lame, but other than that (and Leo’s “floating face” in the theatre scene), this mash-up is great.

7. Good Will Hunted

Creator: ohigotchya

Robin Williams will effing END you.

6. Garden State (Murder Mystery Version)

Creator: Greg Jocoy of Next Generation Films

Who killed Zach Braff’s mother?

5. Office Space (Crime Story Version)

Creator: 102.1 The Edge

There are a few different Office Space remixes going around — this one re-tells the story as a tense, sinister crime thriller.

4. Scary Mary

Creator: Chris Rule and Nick Eckert

Before Mary Poppins, did we even think of using umbrellas as floating transportation devices? She inspired everybody. Not anymore: “Scary Mary” is the new scourge of England. This looks like the perfect campfire horror story to tell, about the lady who appears in the mirror, whose head rotates 360 degrees, and who comes to your house at night being carried by the wind. Superb concept, superb execution.

3. Shining

Creator: Robert Ryang of P.S. 260

When Stephen King wrote “The Shining,” it was already a terrifying work of art. When
Stanley Kubrick made the film, it pretty much came to define a generation’s concept of scariness. Redrum? Yeah, that’s from this film. This award-winning movie trailer remix manages to turn an expert cinematographer’s shots completely ass-backwards, and turns “The Shining” in a cute family film about a struggling writer and his son. The redux is called “Shining,” and it uses Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” as part of the soundtrack. Perfect.

2. Ten Things I Hate About Commandments

Creator: Mike Dow at Smacky Productions

The best re-edited previews are the ones that not only introduce a new plotline, but switch genres entirely. Doing so requires subverting the cinematography, the acting and everything else that has purposefully been poured into the movie by the original filmmakers, and making it feel like an entirely different film. This smart-ass spoof does exactly that by masterfully turning epic masterpiece The 10 Commandments into just another teen movie. Where once a tale of biblical proportions proved who ruled the earth, now it’s all about which kid “rules the school.” I can’t tell which is the best part: Pharoah’s court with a teen movie soundtack, or Samuel L. Jackson’s cameo as the voice of “Principal Firebush.”

1. Toy Story 2: Requiem

Creator: Mike Hindes at Alien Panic

Toy Story is an uplifting, witty Pixar animation about toys coming to life. The universal appeal and success of this movie makes the remix all the more amazing and tragic: the toys have discovered the dark side of living. Using dialogue and music from “Requiem for a Dream,” the creators of this trailer turn Toy Story into a nihilistic tale of the downfall of everybody’s favourite toys. They’ve managed to perfectly match and synchronize dialogue from Requiem with the animation in Toy Story, recreate the “getting high” montage from Requiem, and introduce the high-stakes, dangerous-living vibe into a story from which this mood was completely absent. An amazing feat of hijacking, and one that is as entertaining as it is heartbreaking.

Worth a mention

I had to draw the line somewhere, but here are four runners-up that I couldn’t let go of:

West Side Story as a zombie film
Creator: Tom Colella of PS 260

Lord of the Rings, Transformers Style
Creator: VegaSailor

Mel Gibson’s Apocolypto (Revenge of the Jews)
Creator: Saturday Night Live

Must Love Jaws
Creator: Mike Dow at Smacky Productions

For more interesting movie remixes, try The Trailer Mash. They seem to be doing a good job cataloguing most of them. Just watch out for the ones with awkward spelling errors like “a haertwarning story about a loves,” and any trailer that is about gay romance, sex with animals, or pedophilia. Seriously bros, Spiderman as a sex offender? It’s just not that funny.

You can download the song for free right here:
Feisty Stevens: The Zombies Are Inside Out!! (mash-up by Kevan Gilbert)

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Hi friends,

I’ve been hard at work at my secret laboratory, trying to mix beats and rhythms together to create something magical, and I think I’ve finally come up with something worth sharing.

Everybody knows Feist by now: Recently featured in an iPod commercial with her video for “1, 2, 3, 4,” she had previously captured people’s attention with her debut album, “Let It Die.” On that album, she did a cover of a Bee Gee’s song called “Inside Out.” It was a sparse and danceable interpretation — like a quiet disco in an empty chapel, maybe. Okay, now that you’ve conjured up the track, hold that sweet thought.

You might also remember weeping (in the van, with your friends) over Sufjan Stevens’ “Illinois” album. One track from that collection was called “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbours!! They Have Come Back From the Dead! Ahhhh!,” which was also a very groovy song.

Anyway, long story short, I INTRODUCED THEM TO EACH OTHER. Turns out, they loved each other from the start. They only required very minimal adjustments to tempo and pitch before they started rocking, and with a few very careful weeks of tweaking and arranging, they finally produced a likeable, danceable offspring. The result is my most precious mash-up ever.

I present to you: Feisty Stevens – The Zombies Are Inside Out!!

Please share this with your friends, and if you happen to be the friend of a friend of a girl who sings in the choir for Sufjan or plays in the band for Feist, feel free to pass this along, especially since Sufjan says his music isn’t suited to remixes.