SNL’s “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer” with Ed Norton Should Be a Real Movie

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SNL’s “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer” with Ed Norton Should Be a Real Movie

Rotham October 22, 2025 0 Comments

Some Saturday Night Live parody trailers are so good that you’d actually want to watch the movie — and that’s how we feel about this 2013 pretaped sketch that imagines a Wes Anderson project called The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.

Actor Ed Norton hosted Season 39’s Halloween show, after starring in the director’s Moonrise Kingdom and just before the release of The Grand Budapest Hotel. As a frequent Anderson collaborator, he was the perfect person to star in SNL‘s version of a Wes Anderson horror film, but he didn’t even play himself. He impersonated his Grand Budapest Hotel co-star, Owen Wilson.

In Midnight Coterie, Wilson is “a man in danger,” while The Royal Tenenbaums actress Gwyneth Paltrow (Noel Wells) plays his “terrified wife.” They realize that their house is surrounded by murderers, or as Wilson/Norton puts it, “There’s a bunch of crazy people standing in our yard. I think we’re about to get murdered.”

Their yard is, in fact, filled with danger.

SNL‘s “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer” sketch also parodies The Strangers

“There’s a guy with a meat cleaver, and an old record player. One’s carrying a falcon. There are twins in matching track suits. Hey, look at that! Why, that’s Danny Glover!”

Jay Pharoah plays Glover, casually standing by a tree.

Alec Baldwin narrates the trailer, deeming it “a tale of handmade horror” as Wilson/Norton’s character gets a note written on a paper airplane.

“Dear Homeowner: Can we kill you? – The Murderers.” The killers wear creepy vintage masks as they loom in the yard, a la the 2008 horror movie The Strangers, mixed with Anderson references like the matching track suits from Tenenbaums.

Despite writing back and saying, “No you may not,” the man’s home is still under attack, so he yells for his kids to join him in the “panic room” (a tent on the floor). The two precocious children, played by Nasim Pedrad and John Milhiser, gather their weapons, but they take so long listing them all out that they run out of time before the sinister intruders come inside.

This mythical film also stars Tilda Swinton (Kate McKinnon) as the town constable, Anjelica Huston (Cecily Strong), Jason Schwartzman (Kyle Mooney), Adrien Brody (Mike O’Brien), and a Fantastic Mr. Fox-esque stop-motion mouse.

Edward Norton folding his hands together on stage during Saturday Night Live Season 39 Episode 4.

The concept is so strong that it feels like The Midnight Coterie might as well be a real movie that we’d happily pay to see on the big screen.

“I genuinely hate how much I want to see this movie,” wrote one commenter on YouTube, while another said, “I will never emotionally recover from the fact that this isn’t a real movie that I can immediately watch right now.”

The Wes Anderson Horror Trailer was written by John Solomon, Rob Klein, Chris Kelly, and Sarah Schneider

Rhys Thomas directed the piece, with cinematography by Alex Buono. Buono once recapped his time working on the trailer, revealing that the shoot started at 10 am on Friday and didn’t wrap until 7 am on Saturday — the day it was supposed to air. They were putting the finishing touches on as the live show began.

Buono later told Musicbed that he gives all credit to the design team.

“We did a spot on SNL one time, this Wes Anderson–style horror film called Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders. I got a lot of compliments on how nice the cinematography was,” Buono said. “But you know what? I literally bounced one light. It was such a good-looking set. The color pallet was so perfect. The costumes were so perfect. And I had nothing to do with any of that. The only thing I did was get out of the way and say, ‘Please put money and energy into production design.'”

Watch “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer: The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders” from Season 39, Episode 4 above, and stream every season of Saturday Night Live on Peacock anytime.