Hunter Schafer stars in Gentle Monster’s horror ad
Gentle Monster turns its Fall 2025 launch into a horror spectacle. Here's how the brand hacked Halloween to go viral
Gentle Monster just turned its Fall 2025 eyewear drop into a cinematic horror experience, and it’s far more than a Halloween gimmick.
This article explores how the Korean brand teamed up with actor Hunter Schafer and director Nadia Lee Cohen to create THE HUNT, a one-minute campaign film that riffs on horror tropes to deliver spectacle, style, and shareability. Beyond the bloody visuals and genre references, there’s a playbook here for marketers looking to create culturally charged campaigns that stick.
Short on time?
Here is a table of content for quick access:
- What happened: A fashion drop disguised as a horror film
- Why this works: cultural playbook, not just product
- What marketers should know
Patrecia Meliana
A fashion drop disguised as a horror film
Gentle Monster’s THE HUNT is a fast-paced, surreal short film built entirely around the brand’s Fall 2025 collection. Starring Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer and directed by cult favorite Nadia Lee Cohen, the campaign was unveiled just ahead of Halloween weekend and immediately lit up Instagram.
The film opens with a voyeur watching Schafer dance alone in a suburban house before being killed and dragged off by masked figures. As Schafer braces for impact inside the house, things escalate fast. Masked intruders storm in, windows shatter, and the twist arrives when one attacker removes their mask to reveal Schafer’s own face.
It ends with Schafer’s character driving off, only to realize a yellow raincoated figure (a nod to Stephen King’s IT) waits silently in the backseat. The screen cuts as her head hits the wheel. The mask drops to the asphalt. The film is over.
The campaign is packed with horror film references. Think Scream, Funny Games, Smile, Halloween, and The Shining. A teaser dropped six days earlier featured a 3D axe smashing through a door marked “1107”, sending fans into speculation mode with guesses ranging from The Shining to a potential K-pop collab with Choi Yeon-jun, whose album drops on November 7.
Why this works
While fashion brands have long used high-concept videos for drops, THE HUNT signals a deeper trend. This is seasonal storytelling that taps into internet culture.
Here’s what made this campaign tick:
- Timing: Launching just ahead of Halloween gave the brand a cultural moment to hook onto. Horror fans and fashion followers collided, creating viral crossover appeal
- Stylistic continuity: Gentle Monster already has a reputation for surreal, cinematic campaigns. This one extends that brand DNA while borrowing the visual grammar of popular horror
- Platform-native format: The short film debuted on Instagram Reels, optimized for vertical viewing and attention economy dynamics. It wasn’t just on social, it was made for it
- Narrative as launch strategy: Rather than spotlighting product details, the eyewear appeared subtly within scenes. The product was part of the world, not the hero shot
Marketers can take note. In saturated markets, it’s not just what you show. It’s the world you build around it that draws people in.
What marketers should know
For brand strategists and PR pros, THE HUNT shows how to turn a campaign into a cultural event. Here’s what to keep in mind:
1. Use seasonal moments as creative leverage
Holidays like Halloween offer more than sales spikes. They give brands emotional and cultural hooks. Gentle Monster leaned all the way in, using horror iconography and narrative tension to anchor its drop.
2. Let the product play a supporting role
Instead of centering sunglasses in every frame, THE HUNT let story and character lead. The result is a campaign that feels cinematic, not commercial. Marketers pushing brand-led storytelling can draw from this balance.
3. Tease, then drop
The campaign rollout followed a staggered rhythm. First came the teaser (with just enough mystery), then the poster reveal, and finally the full film. Each stage invited speculation and earned media without traditional ad spend.
4. Speak Gen Z’s language: horror, fandom, and fluency in format
The campaign’s references and aesthetic choices mirror the media habits of Gen Z. Think viral horror, K-pop speculation, and stylized dread. The whole experience felt native to Instagram rather than a billboard forced into a feed.
Patrecia Meliana
Not just Gentle Monster: seasonal horror goes brand-side
Gentle Monster isn’t the only brand making Halloween strategic. Fanta recently rolled out limited-edition packaging featuring horror icons like Freddy Fazbear (Five Nights at Freddy’s), M3GAN, and Chucky in partnership with Universal Pictures.
That collab aims to make Fanta the go-to Halloween drink by aligning the soda’s playful tone with Gen Z’s obsession with cinematic horror. With sequels like Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and M3GAN 2.0 on the horizon, Fanta’s partnership doubles as an anticipatory hype machine.
THE HUNT proves a fashion campaign doesn’t need to explain itself in words. It just needs to immerse you. Gentle Monster built a mini horror universe to launch a new collection and, in doing so, gave marketers a fresh example of how to use culture, timing, and storytelling to drive relevance.
For brands ready to do more than post and hope, this is the kind of world-building that wins hearts and algorithms.
