A new fan-made trailer is reimagining The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, with the original Aunt Viv character returning. The twist? It’s a horror story!
Inspired by Jordan Peele’s Us and Get Out, as well as the buzzy Bel-Air viral trailer from Morgan Cooper, Auntie offers a surreal, thriller-tinged look at what happens to these characters/actresses when their roles continue after they’ve been recast. The project is created by Bobby Huntley, who came up with the idea with Colbie Fray after they met at Sundance.
“We left Sundance knowing we wanted to work together on something within the near future. A month or so later, I called her late one night and pitched her this idea and without hesitation, she came on board. I really wanted a Black woman to take on the director hat of this project, telling this story of a strong character played by two amazing actresses on a tv show we all grew up watching,” he said. They fleshed the idea out with Fray’s creative partner Olamma Oparah.
The project’s stars include Theresa Lang, Letitia Jackson, Nic Starr and Charles Huggins. “We wanted to make sure we touched on as much as possible. We put a lot of hidden gems in the dialogue, clothing, and actions itself to keep the people watching, again and again, to pick up on them,” said Frey.
In order to address the ways in which other actresses were replaced on other classic television shows, new portrayals of Judy and Harriet Winslow from Family Matters, Becky Conner from Roseanne as well as Claire Kyle from My Wife and Kids also appear in the short.
Most of the production team consisted of Black women, including producers Cassondra “Cassie” Beasley, Kayla Daniels, Rita Lamar and Lailaa Brookings, as well as cinematographer Mya Morton. The project was cast by Kayla Daniels.
As you may recall, Huntley also created the fan-made New Edition trailer in 2015 that went viral, paving the way for the hit 2016 BET biopic miniseries, The New Edition Story. Huntley’s first feature-length film, La Vie Magnifique de Charlie, will be released later this year.
Watch the Auntie teaser below: