Shoppers ambushed in Paramount Pictures ‘Rings’ prank
Paramount Pictures is promoting the upcoming release of a sequel to The Ring, called Rings, with a candid video scaring the life out of shoppers that has enjoyed nearly 200 million Facebook views.
The studio, harking back to the disturbing scene in the Ring where Samara, the eerie undead girl, crawls from a blinking TV set, rigged up a shop to replicate the scene.
A fake TV obscuring a hidden passage was rigged in an electronics shop. Intermittently the girl crawled from the screen perpetrating a convincing optical illusion and providing a deeply unpleasant surprise to anyone in the market for a new TV.
In addition to the respectable Facebook reach from the campaign, the official YouTube video has racked up something close to one million views – all at the expense of some unwitting consumers. Cnet confirms with a customer that the candid scenes were indeed authentic.
Rings is in theatres 3 February, 2017.