Okay, this is just weirdness. It seems to have suddenly become a bit of a trend in that old movie trailers are being reworked into something they aren’t. Here is a bit of off center strange, a very scary movie becomes a happy happy joy joy fest while a musical delight is transformed into a rather cliched bit of zombie outbreak scariness.

I remember seeing The Shining when it first came out in 1980 and I remember being terrified out of my wits and unable to sleep for quite some time. Well, with a bit of clever editing and new music, the trailer is remixed into a delightful family movie. Watch this video clip and wonder . . . really wonder. Of course, this new film Shining may seem like a feel good bit of fluff but as we recognize so many of the shots as coming from scary scenes from the original, the transformation is incomplete. This is scary stuff, even when it’s not. See more discussion at John Moore’s Brand Autopsy, a link I ganked from The Taipei Kid.

Another classic film being reworked into something it totally is not of late is West Side Story which I couldn’t see when it first came out in 1961 as I wasn’t even born yet. However, I saw it a million times on television growing up. It is a musical with some dark elements and some delightful moments and most certainly is NOT a scary horror suspense thing about an infection that turns people into mindless zombies. Really, it just isn’t that sort of a movie. Except . . . thanks to the thrills of filmic remixing, the trailer has been reworked to appear to be just that sort of a film. See the new trailer here. That’s some scary reworking. See more discussion on Seth Godin’s Blog. What does this sort of thing mean? Nothing much, other than someone wants to play with theme, music, and cutting. It is a delightful twist on an old song, so to speak.

Now, I’m curious to see when we’re going to see the Batman and Robin trailer remixed so it appears to be a delightful romantic comedy about a love triangle in which a girl loves a boy who loves a boy who loves a boy with another girl in love with the the other boy but who is loved by yet another girl who is friends to a guy who is a closet necrophiliac. Oh, I guess that is what that movie was about . . . well, except for the delightful part . . . uh, so nevermind.