Moody Trailer Cover Song

A major trend in 2010s movie advertising (and occasionally trailers for other media) is using a famous upbeat pop song to set the mood, only recontextualized with dark, atmospheric music, most often sung by a breathy female vocalist singing at the lower end of her range and loaded to the gills with percussion in the suspenseful or action-heavy parts of the trailer. Typically, these songs use bright cheerful pop songs with deceptively unhappy lyrics, which the new versions attempt to underline. This can also be used for advertising derivative works; a famous song from the source material can be repurposed into something slower and moodier to indicate that it's going to be Darker and Edgier.

Compare Ironic Nursery Tune. Usually a Repurposed Pop Song or a Softer and Slower Cover.

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Examples:

Film — Animated

• Lightyear: The trailer shows of its science fiction trappings with an epic remix of "Star Man" by David Bowie.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: The second half of the first trailer features a slow, dramatic piano cover of the franchise’s iconic theme tune.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: The teaser opens with a somber orchestral cover of the 80s theme song.

• Wendell & Wild: A slow, ominous version of “How You Like Me Now” plays over the teaser trailer, complete with piano accompaniment.

Film — Live-Action

• Alien: Covenant featured Aurora's atmospheric cover of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy" in its teaser trailer.
• The Lifetime made-for-TV biopic Anna Nicole has Amy Gerhartz's slowed-down cover of Irene Cara's "Fame".
• Army of the Dead:
  • The second trailer uses Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler", which plays normally over the first half of the trailer before the zombie mayhem picks up in the second half, at which point it's remixed into something out of an action movie soundtrack.
  • The film itself features a variation in its opening credits, which, per Zack Snyder tradition, are set to a popular classic rock song, in this case an upbeat and at times even comical cover of "Viva Las Vegas" by Richard Cheese and Allison Crowe that's initially meant for Soundtrack Dissonance. As the song goes on, however, it turns into the Moody Trailer Cover Song version of itself as the images on screen go from humorous and kick-ass to just plain bleak, culminating in a downright depressing final verse from Crowe as we see a mother and her young daughter both die, the girl clinging to her mother to be Together in Death with her instead of surviving without her.
• Blair Witch featured a cover of The Police's already-creepy Obsession Song "Every Breath You Take."
• The first trailer for Candyman (2021) uses a slowed down version of Destiny's Child's "Say My Name". In this case, it's a remix instead of a cover.
• The first trailer for Child's Play (2019) makes use of Harry Nilsson's "Best Friend".
• The trailers for The Circle (2017) feature a somber rendition of Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes".
• A Cure for Wellness used an ironic cover of punk legends The Ramones' iconic "I Wanna Be Sedated" by Mirel Wagner. The use of drugs and sedatives figures heavily in the movie.
• The trailer for The Craft: Legacy features a slower, more somber cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".
• The trailer for The Creator (2023) features a redux of the Aerosmith song "Dream On".
• The trailer for Crimson Peak featured PJ Harvey's cover of Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand."
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Suicide Squad features Becky Hanson's slow, haunting cover of The Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke" in its trailer, because the film features The Joker and Harley Quinn, and the lyrics mock the titular Suicide Squad's lack of agency as Boxed Crooks. The original version is more of a soul ballad.
    But I couldn't see
    That the joke was on me
  • Justice League used a grungy cover of David Bowie's "Heroes" by Gangs of Youth, since the film is about superheroes coming together.
• Dracula Untold's trailer uses Lorde's cover of Tears for Fears's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."
• Dumbo (2019) has a cover of the original film's Signature Song "Baby Mine" play during the trailer. This particular cover doesn't appear in the remake itself, but Arcade Fire did cover the song for the closing credits.
• The 2014 adaptation of Endless Love uses Robert Palmer's '80s hit "Addicted to Love," emphasizing the insanity of love.
• Enola Holmes 2: Both the first and second trailer use a female-performed cover of “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” from The Who. It’s in the second trailer, however, that the music becomes tense and orchestral as the stakes of the mystery are revealed.
• Evil Dead Rise has an ominous rework of Doris Day's "Que Sera Sera".
• The trailer for Fantasy Island (2020) starts with a straight use of Ariana Grande's "7 Rings" as the characters arrive in a tropical paradise. Once the second half of the trailer shifts to horror, however, the song turns increasingly sinister, in particular repeating the line "I want it, I got it" as the Be Careful What You Wish For elements of the story come into play.
• Beyoncé recorded a whole new remix of her own "Crazy in Love" as a promotion for Fifty Shades of Grey.
• The trailer for The Gallows uses a creepy rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which would later be used in the opening credits of Black Widow.
• A trailer for Geostorm features a slow, creepy cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" sung by a mournful female voice. There's meant to be a juxtaposition between the sweetly optimistic lyrics and the gratuitous scenes of Monumental Damage and at the hands of the Hostile Weather.
  I see skies of blue and clouds of white

  *dozens of tornadoes bearing down on a village as terrified people flee for their lives*
  The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

  *30 story tall tsunami sweeps through a coastal city, toppling buildings like dominoes*
  And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

  *birds falling out of the sky, followed by an airplane careening wildly towards the ground*
• Ghost in the Shell (2017)'s trailer is set to Ki:Theory's cover of the Depeche Mode song "Enjoy the Silence".
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters had a trailer set to a moody cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
• The Great Gatsby (2013) had Filter's cover of '60s pop classic "Happy Together" by The Turtles.
• Lorde sung a slow, cinematic cover of Tears for Fears's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" for the trailer of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
• The Russian doping documentary "Icarus" uses a moody cover of Cake's "The Distance," an alt-rock song about an obsessed race car driver.
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny starts with a straight usage of "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones (Band), which transitions to a more bombastic remix, which itself transitions to the iconic Indiana Jones theme with elements of "Sympathy" mixed in.
• Insurgent: The Film of the Book also uses a moodier cover of Louis Armstrong's happy "What a Wonderful World" ironically, as much destruction goes on in the trailer as it plays.
• In-universe example: The Killing of a Sacred Deer featured the main character's daughter singing an a capella cover of Ellie Goulding's "Burn," taken from a scene in the movie.
• Last Night in Soho's trailer has Anya Taylor-Joy sing a moody, atmospheric version of Petula Clark's cheery "Downtown", signifying that the film utilizes The '60s to eerie effect.
• A slower version of "Paint It Black" is used in the trailer for The Last Witch Hunter.
• Logan used Johnny Cash's version of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" (one of the few examples where the cover version was already well known) in many of its trailers.
• M3GAN: The first trailer features Taylor Swift’s “It’s Nice to Have a Friend”, which takes on a more sinister remix as the title character’s malevolence is exposed.
• Maleficent had Lana Del Rey sing a moodier, more somber cover of Sleeping Beauty's romantic love song "Once Upon a Dream" for the trailer, emphasizing that it's a Perspective Flip of that film.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • An example that also appeared in the movie; the trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron featured a woman, and later Ultron himself singing a slow, creepy cover of the ebullient "I've Got No Strings" from Pinocchio, as both are Artificial Humans, but Ultron turned against his masters.
  • The first trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is set to a downtempo cover of Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" sung by Nigerian artist Tems. Towards the end of the trailer the pace picks up as it blends into Kendrick Lamar's "Alright".
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania uses the "straightforward usage into epic remix" variant with Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".
• The trailer for The Matrix Resurrections, much like Us and Army of the Dead, starts with a straightforward usage of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit", which later descends into a more epic-sounding remix as it goes on.
• Nope:
  • "Fingertips, Pts. I & II" by Stevie Wonder plays over the trailer; it begins with Emerald grooving to a record of the wild 1962 live version on the stereo, up until the power goes out and the turntable stops, and segues to a very grim, tense mix of just hand claps, bongos, and Little Stevie's voice crying out.
  • The BET Awards trailer puts its own spin on the melody from E-40’s “Choices”, and aptly includes the “nope/yep” backing vocals.
• Past Lives's trailer uses a subdued cover of Rihanna's "Stay" to set the pensive and romantic mood.
• The teaser trailer for Power Rangers (2017) featured Halsey's graver, more ambient cover of Johnny Cash's upbeat "I Walk the Line."
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies featured an atmospheric cover of "Born to Be Wild." Presumably this is referring to Elizabeth Bennet being a badass.
• Rambo: Last Blood: The trailer uses a somber cover of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road".
• Ready Player One has a variation. The cover of "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory by Ghostwriter Music fits this trope with the lyrics used, as they are sung slowly and infused with electronica, but the track itself gets more and more bombastic in the instrumental portion. The song is fitting, as the film is about a virtual world where nearly anything is possible.
• San Andreas, a movie about an earthquake wiping out San Francisco, used Sia's slow ironic cover of "California Dreamin'".
• The first trailer for Shotgun Wedding (2023) uses a slow, dramatic mix of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” over its action-filled second half.
• The commercials for the Dwayne Johnson movie Skyscraper uses a slow cover of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down."
• Slumberland uses a slow, instrumental cover of Coldplay’s “Clocks” for its main trailer.
• Most articles credit The Social Network's use of a children choir singing Radiohead's "Creep" as the Trope Codifier. Unlike most later examples, however, the original is not very upbeat.
• Terminator: Dark Fate had a cover of Björk's "Hunter".
• Tetris (2023): An ominous, synth version of the game’s theme - the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki” - plays over the trailer, mixed with “The Final Countdown”.
• Tomb Raider (2018) goes with a cover of Destiny's Child's "Survivor." Lara is indeed a survivor.
• Another remix-instead-of-cover version, courtesy of Smashing Pumpkins, is used for the Watchmen trailer (incidentally, the original also graced a DC superhero movie, Batman & Robin).
• The trailer for Us starts with a straight, diegetic playing of Luniz's "I Got 5 On It", but then transitions to a sinister-sounding instrumental version with the melody played higher to resemble "Psycho" Strings. This theme also appears in the film.
• A Walk Among the Tombstones used a cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun".
• Defied and inverted in the trailers for We Have a Ghost that remix The Doors' "Break On Through" to sound more whimsical.
• HBO's ads for their Bernie Madoff TV-movie The Wizard of Lies features a dark cover of The Police's "King of Pain" by Valerie Broussard.
• Wrath of Man uses a darker cover of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" for both the trailer and the film itself.
• Wrath of the Titans used a cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", specifically Marilyn Manson's already-famous, much angrier-sounding version.
• A Wrinkle in Time (2018) used a different cover of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" in order to set the fantastic tone of the film.
• X-Men: Apocalypse used Clairity's slow cover of Coldplay's "Don't Panic" in the trailer. The original was already fairly somber, but trailer milks the slower, more intense rendition of the lyric "We live in a beautiful world" repeatedly to highlight the irony that Apocalypse is destroying it.
• The trailer for Zero Dark Thirty uses a choir version of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica.

Live-Action TV

• At least one of the trailers for American Horror Story: Coven used a slow-paced version of "House of the Rising Sun".
• The trailer for The Defenders (2017) included a slow version of Nirvana's "Come As You Are".
• Game of Thrones: The teaser trailer of season seven used a slow version of "Sit Down" by James where the coda of the song is used to show the state of the three rulers of the Seven Kingdoms (Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Cersei Lannister) who are walking towards their thrones.
• Hannibal: Season two's trailer used MONA's warped version of Ben E King's "Stand By Me" to emphasize the main characters' complicated relationship.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • The SDCC trailer song is a slower, haunting cover of XTC's "Dear God" performed by Lawless and Sydney Wayser.
  • The official trailer contains an eerie rendition of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy".
• The trailer for the third season of The Magicians also uses Valerie Broussard's more mournful-sounding, breathy-voiced version of The Police's "King Of Pain".
• The Midnight Club has "Possum Kingdom" by Toadies for its trailer, starting off upbeat and normal before shifting into a slower, ominous remix as the drama and supernatural elements come into play.
• Star Trek: Discovery used a cover of "I'd Love To Change The World" by Ten Years After.
• Stranger Things:
  • The season three trailer uses an ominous remix of The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" to showcase both the Party becoming teenagers and the Mind Flayer coming back for revenge.
  • The trailer for season four features a slower and chilling remix of "Separate Ways" by Journey to symbolize the Breaking the Fellowship status of the cast. This treatment also features in the show itself, at the end of that season's penultimate episode.
  • Season four does this in the show itself during the final battle against Vecna, set to an amped-up action movie remix of "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush that's combined with the show's theme song.
• Swarm: A very haunting rendition of The Pixies’ “Where is My Mind” plays over the main trailer.
• Wednesday has an orchestral string cover of “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones for its main trailer.
• Welcome to Chippendales includes a tense remix of “Separate Ways” by Journey in its trailer.
• The trailer for The Whispers has "You Are My Sunshine" playing like a nursery rhyme.
• The trailer for the third season of You (2018) sets Joe and Love's murderous shenanigans to a slow, crooning atmospheric cover of Britney Spears's "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by J2.

Video Games

• A trailer for the second Crysis game has a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" playing over the ruins of, you guessed it Big Applesauce. To completely be this trope, it's done by a female singer in a low voice.
• As with as Dracula Untold, Lorde's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was also used by Assassin's Creed: Unity, which came out the same year.
• The trailer for the video game Dead Space featured a woman singing "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" in a way that sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
• Commercials for Evolve feature Mischa feat. Esthero's cover of "Ready Or Not" by The Delfonics. The cover only includes the chorus, which emphasises the dark and frightening feel of the game. Another trailer uses Lissie's cover of Danzig's "Mother", which spends about two thirds of the song being more slow and mournful before escalating into the rapid-fire final riff.
• Florence + the Machine did a cover of Ben E King's "Stand by Me" for Final Fantasy XV. It is a bit slower than the original, but more soulful and bombastic.
• An early example is the Gears of War "Mad World" trailer, which uses Gary Jules's cover of the Tears for Fears song. Although this cover was originally recorded for the soundtrack for Donnie Darko.
• The Evil Within 2 uses a dark and bittersweet cover of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" prominently in the trailer. It also features in the finished game as the ending credits theme.
• The trailer for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is set to a creepy rendition of "Go Tell Aunt Rhody".
• The first look at Marvel's Midnight Suns uses a new version of Enter Sandman by Alessia Cara.
• The teaser trailer for Poppy Playtime uses a creepy and eerie cover of Itsy Bitsy Spider, being sang by a female with an echoed and raspy voice that can trigger goosebumps to rise. It's even more spine-chilling and butt-clenching when demon-like whispering is heard during the song, and gets louder to repeat the "climbed up the spout again" line before the woman stops singing, only for the titular deurotagonist to foreshadow the upcoming main antagonist for the chapter. Yeesh.
• The official announce trailer for Transformers Reactivate uses a new version of "Wanted Dead Or Alive".

Web Video

• Parodied in "How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer" by Auralnauts, with a cover of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)." In 2020, Auralnauts followed it up with a sequel, "How To Make An ACTION MOVIE Trailer", which features an ironic cover of the theme from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Western Animation

• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power does this in the Season 5 trailer with its own theme song, "Warriors." The song is covered by AJ Michalka of Aly & A.J., who is also the voice of Catra on the show. While the original is more upbeat and empowering in tone, the cover is slower and grimmer, reflecting the escalating conflict heading into the final season.

Other

• One commercial for Alfa Romeo uses an atmospheric cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game."
• A 2022 commercial for the Lincoln Navigator uses an atmospheric cover of The Police's "Walking on the Moon".
• Parodied, and crossed with Ironic Nursery Tune, with the satire website Hard Drive in the article "Movie Trailer Editor Struggling to Create Menacing Rendition of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’".
  “When people see this trailer, we want them to have nightmares about it,” said Lionsgate marketing head Damon Wolf. “There is absolutely nothing more terrifying than hearing the song your mother sang to you every night, but like, scary. You’re going to piss your pants the next time you walk into a daycare, just wait and see.”

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