Cinefix, who already has a string of recut trailers we’ve shared, did something interesting with the classic Bill Murray starrer What About Bob?.
In the 1991 film, Murray plays Bob Wiley, a psychiatric patient who follows his egotistical psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) on vacation. When the unstable Bob befriends the other members of Marvin’s family, it pushes the doctor over the edge.
The film begins as a comedy with elements of a stalker thriller, where Bob is clearly overstepping his bounds, which is both inconveniencing and a little scary to Marvin. In fact, if I remember correctly, in an early scene Bob is dropped onto Marvin by an associate who can’t take it anymore. It’s clear he’s a lot to handle. It’s a stressful watch for a comedy as Bob invades Marvin’s life, and even worse when the family begins to side with Bob over their own.
This trailer mix pulls out the funny and turns What About Bob? in a deadpan serious stalker thriller in which Bob torments this family. It’s an ironic trailer mix being that it’s actually similar to the film’s original beats, only without Murray’s charm. Now, he’s portrayed as a lunatic, which may be a little offensive to people suffering from disorders such as OCD, a devastating life illness.