Sweded Films

The term "sweded" has become a commonly used word for remade, low budget, unedited films since the release of the Michel Gondry comedy, "Be Kind, Rewind". The slang term was fabricated when the film's video store worker main character, Jerry (Jack Black), accidentally erased all of the video store's movies and decided it would be a good idea to make his own remakes of all of the films with the help of co-worker, Mike (Mos Def). After deciding to charge high prices for the amateur DVDs, Jerry made up the excuse that they were imported from Sweden; hence the term "sweded".

Sweded films must be based on a film which already exists, contain only hand crafted titles and be around 5 minutes long. As well as this, all sound effects must be created using only the human voice and no other instruments. Most importantly, for a film to fit into the 'sweded' category, it must be funny.

After watching quite a lot of sweded films on youtube, I have picked out two of my favourites:

The Avengers
I think that this sweded film works extremely well for a number of reasons; the sound effects are hilarious, the props are low budget yet effective, the characters are easily identifiable and the script is funny yet still true to the actual plot.

The Shining

This is a brilliant remake of The Shining. In particular, I love the first scene with the small yellow toy car being pulled along a wall. It is so effective because, in the actual film, the Torrence family are in a yellow beetle driving along a deserted mountain path and I think that this sweded version does a great yet comical job at replicating it. I also really like how the man playing Mr Torrence in this really exaggerates the character as it adds a comedy factor to the film. The use of lego to show the maze is also low budget yet very creative. I think that the use of a mirror towards the end of the film to create the illusion of two girls like the twins in the actual film is very clever. The soundtrack to this sweded film is also very funny as no instruments are used so it fits in well with the low budget aspect of sweded films.

Which film would I like to Swede?

I have had a few ideas of which film I would like to Swede such as Grease, Home Alone, Mean Girls and Cinderella. However I have decided that the most effective would probably be The Titanic. I would love to Swede The Titanic as there are so many iconic scenes within the film such as when Rose threatens to jump off the boat and when Jack drowns. I think that the The Titanic is definitely a realistic film to shoot at school because we wouldn't really need many props other than a blue sheet to replicate the sea and some cardboard to make the boat. When sweding a film, it is good to choose a film which lots of people know otherwise the comedy of it will not be conveyed and I think that The Titanic is one of the most well known movies of all time.