It’s not so much the Blair Witch Project parody idea for Three and LG’s new smartphone launch. Nor its hairy purple Muppet-like star. It’s the viewer warning.

When you invest enough time and money to make a 5.34 minute brand film, you want it to work hard. And there are lots of brand films on YouTube. There are even lots of parody films, so the fact that Wieden + Kennedy’s brand film for LG and Three is a spoof of the Blair Witch Project is great, but not exceptional.

But W+K added something irresistible right up front – within the magic 5 seconds any film has to snare its audience’s attention. The viewer warning title: The following film contains scenes of a disturbing nature. Viewer discretion advised.

That’s a really good thing. The film doesn’t look like much in its first 30 seconds or so. The Three Mobile purple puppet has gone into the woods to unbox the LG G$ smartphone.

Sigh.

But do keep watching. The film gets freaky when Jackson head off into the woods with his camper mate. They come across an abandoned hearse, various scary skeletons and finally, a haunted house that’s so very like the one in Blair Witch. Camper-mate, who doubles as cameraman becomes increasingly spooked (pun, sorry).

But Jackson, the intrepid LG tester, is focussed on the excitement of the adventure (and his new phone) and many of the film’s scary events turn out to be the results of his playing with the LG G4.

No prizes for guessing that Jackson was created in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

Director, Matthijs van Heijningen, also directed 2011 version of The Thing.

The production company was MJZ.

The full spot is being shown in cinemas in the UK from August 1, with 20 second teasers on TV in the UK.