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The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
This fake movie trailer pitches a Halloween slasher from the mind of Wes Anderson. Edward Norton's Owen Wilson spots a lawn full of masked intruders, Danny Glover among them, while his bored wife Gwyneth Paltrow smokes in the hallway. The killers float in a paper-airplane letter asking permission to murder the household, the family types a prim refusal, the father retreats to a pup-tent panic room and the children catalogue an eccentric arsenal, yet everyone ends up roped together on a bench. Tilda Swinton's town constable arrives to save them and is promptly stabbed. Mock critic blurbs, a roll call of Anderson regulars, Alec Baldwin as the narrator and a stop-motion mouse announcing the rating close it out.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 10
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Hey, hon? I think we're about to get murdered.
Dear Homeowner: Can we kill you?
Who here are the murderers?
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Rhys Thomas
Director
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Alec Baldwin, who narrated Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, appears as himself as the trailer's narrator, and the opening uses Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", also heard in that film. The short was directed by Rhys Thomas, with interiors built on a soundstage in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:02
Narrator
In theaters this Halloween comes a new vision of horror like you've never seen before. From the twisted mind of Wes Anderson, it's the Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders, starring Owen Wilson as a man in danger.
- 00:26
Owen Wilson
Wow, what the heck? There's a bunch of crazy people standing in our yard. Hey, hun, I think we're about to get murdered.
- 00:34
Narrator
And his terrified wife, Gwyneth Paltrow...
- 00:36
Gwyneth Paltrow
You don't say.
- 00:39
Narrator
In the face of unspeakable evil...
- 00:42
Owen Wilson
Yeah, look at them all. There's a guy with a meat cleat and an old record player. One's carrying a falcon. They're twins in matching tracksuits. Hey, look at that. Why, that's Danny Glover.
- 00:55
Danny Glover
Hello.
- 01:03
Owen Wilson
Hey, they've sent us some kind of communique.
- 01:08
Speaker 1
dear homeowner can we kill you the murderers
- 01:11
Owen Wilson
dear murderers no you may not the homeowner
- 01:16
Narrator
the story of one determined father
- 01:18
Owen Wilson
hey kids come on let's go to the panic room
- 01:27
Son
we have to protect ourselves or we'll die
- 01:29
Daughter
quick let's gather all our weapons rock hammer swiss army knife slingshot firecracker ship in a bottle protractor picture of edith piaf assault rifle little flag
- 01:40
Owen Wilson
darn we should have left sooner
- 01:44
Narrator
with Tilda Swinton as the town constable
- 01:48
Owen Wilson
hey wow we're saved
- 01:50
Tilda Swinton
hey are the murderers
- 01:53
Narrator
I see times calls it you had me at Wes Anderson and Fangoria magazine Magazine says, Defuh, Owen Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Adrian Brody, a stop motion mouse, and Alec Baldwin as the narrator, the midnight coterie of sinister intruders.
- 02:26
Speaker 2
Rated G.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from across the archive.
