Yes, that is Kris Kristofferson voicing a ghostly, wedding planning dog in the Best Friend From Heaven trailer
We throw around the word "cinematic genius" far too casually, but few of the world's greatest auteurs would be able to conjure something so majestically surreal as Best Friend from Heaven, which looks set to be one of 2017's most unmissable dead canine wedding planner movies.
A strange mix of faith-based drama, romantic comedy and talking-dog kids movie, one that comes off just a bit like Pet Sematary meets a bridal catalogue, Best Friend from Heaven hails from director Justin G. Dyck. You may recognise his name from one of the five other movies he's directed this year, including 48 Christmas Wishes, A Very Country Christmas and Christmas Wedding Planner.
As depicted in the film's hypnotic first trailer, Best Friend from Heaven tells the inspiring story of perky blonde Tara, whose dream wedding to a man who looks a bit like an embalmed waxwork is left in tatters when her dog Gabe is hit by a truck.
Thankfully for Tara and her fiancee, Gabe's talking ghost returns from the great beyond to help restore her wedding dreams.
The dog is also voiced by Kris Kristofferson, who presumably recorded his lines while reclining in the gold-plated bathtub he bought with his Best Friend from Heaven paycheck.
Strangely, this isn't the first anthropomorphic animal feature for Kristofferson, who has recently voiced a donkey in The Star and another talking dog in Snow Buddies. He's also one of the stars of both Dolphin Tale and Dolphin Tale 2, neither of which feature talking dolphins, disappointingly.
Best Friend from Heaven's wackadoodle themes will be familiar to those with even the briefest of knowledge of Hallmark, the American cable network whose brand exclusively consists of low-budget TV movies, many of which revolve around Christmas, God, wedding planning and cute animals doing things they typically don't do.
The film appears to be the natural conclusion to such demographically-specific filmmaking: a movie that tosses quite literally all of it into the pot.
Best Friend from Heaven is the latest project from Brain Power Studios, a Canadian film production and distribution company who appear to specialise in low-budget hilarity.
Films in the pipeline include Fast & Furriest, a comedy road movie described as featuring "a large cast of crazy animals [embarking on] a four city scavenger hunt to win the coveted carrot." It features "a boy band, a Thelma and Louise girl power duo, a van full of nerds, a Griswald-like family with Grandma strapped to the back on her power wheelchair and many more hilarious carloads racing across the country."
Another is Super Detention, described as "X-Men meets The Breakfast Club", the surefire hit My Dad Is Scrooge, and Monkey in the Middle, about a monkey that plays football. UK release dates for all have yet to be announced.