Well, this is a surprising spooky season treat!
Gushers, the sticky fruit snack beloved by Millennials, has released a short horror film based on its creepy, CGI-fueled ads from the ’90s where kids’ heads would turn into fruit after they ate the treat.
The film, “FruitHead,” imagines a world where Bradley Whitford is Richard, a heartless commercial director who was so obsessed with making the Gushers commercial feel real that he used dark magic in order to turn a child actor’s head into a strawberry. Although the actor’s face goes through an extended body horror scene to turn into the fruit, a crew member informs Richard that they were able to get the effect using CGI, and the actor is quickly abandoned.
Unfortunately, years later Richard is taken hostage by Jacob (Chester Collins), the former child actor whose “deformed strawberry head” has ruined his life. Jacob’s revenge is swift and incorporates the ad’s catchphrase: “A taste that will drive you fruity.”
The Mike Diva-directed short film was created via a partnership with Imagine Entertainment and released on the Gushers YouTube channel on Thursday
The ad comes weeks after cider company Angry Orchard commissioned its own spooky short film “Sweet Revenge,” which marked the official return of slasher icon Jason Voorhees.
Whitford has been busy with roles in the Netflix series “The Diplomat” and the upcoming “Death by Lightning,” about the assassination of President James A. Garfield. He has also appeared in some beloved horror movies, including “The Cabin in the Woods” and “Get Out.”
Watch the short film below.