Watch: Six Flags Entertainment’s Halloween campaign is a 6-minute long horror movie

Amusement park corporation Six Flags Entertainment’s Halloween campaign is a short film that will scare viewers into escaping to their nearest amusement park.

The spot, titled Tick. Tick. Tick., opens with a group of housemates gathered around a television set watching a commercial advertising Philadelphia’s Dorney Park and its annual Halloween Haunt, which the spot notes can be accessed with a Gold Season Pass. The ad-inside-the-ad ends on a creepy clown reminiscent of the Joker pointing to a stopwatch as the commercial tells the characters that “fear is waiting.”

One housemate voices his interest in hitting the park that night, but is roundly rejected by the rest, who each have other plans. But they won’t for long — throughout the film, each of the group of friends ends up being attacked by the clown, starting with one man who is dragged into the television screen.

The clown has a couple of calling cards throughout the film, one being his stopwatch and another being the park’s Gold Season Pass, which he uses to lure or distract each character. Typical horror themes emerge throughout the work: light switches suddenly stop working, the clown reappears on the television screen even though it has been turned off and one character finds her mirror reflection is possessed.

The clown’s final victim manages to escape the house and run to the car, where she finds the rest of her friends have already been buckled in by the clown. Finally, he shows up in the car and puts the friends at ease — turns out, he was just kidnapping them to get them to head to the park, and the season passes he lured them with are their tickets.

The work was ideated and created by The Marketing Arm (TMA). The agency’s chief creative officer, Harris Wilkinson, noted in a press release that “this film brings the tension and terror of the in-park experience home, and reminds fans not to keep fear waiting.” 

Stella Smith, VP of advertising and creative services at Six Flags Entertainment, added, “Halloween is having a huge cultural moment, and for us, the time was ripe to up the ante on how we engage with consumers and immerse them into our unique Halloween experience.”

The work will run through the end of October.