Uber Eats and Keke Palmer Deliver a Heart-Stopping Halloween Horror

This Halloween, Uber Eats has joined forces with Keke Palmer and Great Guns USA to deliver a creepy campaign like no other. Embedded with $1 million worth of discount codes, ‘Don’t Run Out’ was directed by Great Guns USA’s Dan Trachtenberg - a known talent in the genre, having helmed such Hollywood thrillers as ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ and ‘Prey’.

The spot takes place on Halloween night, when a trio of friends comes to the dreadful realisation that they’re running low on candy. Keke Palmer’s character explains how one family vanished on Halloween after the same thing happened to them, as she rushes to order more on Uber Eats - but at that moment, the electricity goes out. What ensues is classic horror as the friends nervously split up, each pursued by a malevolent masked figure in the shadows that will teach them never to run out of candy again.

Agency Kamp Grizzly approached Great Guns USA with the brief for a short, scary movie about running out of candy on Halloween - with $1 million worth of discount codes hidden inside. MD and EP on the project, Oliver Fuselier selected director Dan Trachtenberg as the perfect choice to craft the frightening film. 

Taking up the gauntlet, Dan now faced the challenge of condensing suspenseful horror - by definition requiring build up over time - into a mere few minutes. Dan tackled this by blending quick, shocking moments of action with slow, tension-building scenes, helped by economical editing from David Trachtenberg.

A conversation between author and audience, the spot also required an awareness of viewer expectation due to pre-established genre awareness. Drawing from his previous experience working on a range of thrillers, Dan utilised shot construction and sequence design to deliver jolts or build tension in classic horror ways, mathematically crafting a campaign fit for the genre.

One scene which required particular creative problem solving was when the pumpkin-masked menace smashes in Tyler Ritter’s (‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’) face. Dan’s vision was for it to cause a gush of what initially looks like blood, until it nears Tyler’s glasses on the ground and comes into focus, revealing it to be red candy. On location, the crew realised that it would be physically impossible to craft the shot due to the camera’s position and its distance from the glasses. Thankfully, DP Jeff Cutter and PD Noel McCarthy found a way, constructing faux flooring as a ramp to place the glasses on in shallow focus, using the old school movie magic technique of forced perspective to save the shot.

Director Dan Trachtenberg comments, “I had so much fun crafting this creative campaign, filled with inspiration from other horror movies (see how many references you can spot!). In particular, I’d like to thank our editor David Trachtenberg for his deft economic storytelling and knowledge of genre convention, as well as the award-winning special effects, makeup, and design maestro Alec Gillis (whom I had just worked with on ‘Prey’) for his creation of those genuinely chilling masks.”

Oliver Fuselier, MD and EP at Great Guns USA, adds, “When I was contacted by the agency producer, I knew from the get-go that Dan was the guy. This was one of those projects that was so exciting due to the story element, yet so scary due to the timeline; but, when you have a great story, a great director and production team, alongside an amazing agency team and client, it all works out in the end. We are very proud to have been a part of this project!”