Creepy Baby in Hyundai’s ExoBaby Ad Will Haunt Your Dreams
Yep, it’s a cybernetic Chucky. Terrified already, aren’t you?
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
CGI is a beautiful thing. It can be used to depict majestic alien worlds filled with natural wonders we’ve never seen, or ramp up action sequences to an epic scale never achievable in real life. In so many ways, computer-based special effects have improved the quality of cinema today.
Except for one.
It’s filled our world with friggin’ creepy babies.
This phenomenon all began with that dancing baby from the 90s. Remember that atrocity? Let’s refresh your memory:
Despite how computer imaging quality has improved over the years, these animated infants and toddlers have gotten even more terrifying. Remember Son of the Mask? Twilight: Breaking Dawn-Part 2? The E-Trade baby? Compared to them, Gollum is considered adorable.
But none of those compare to the child-computer hybrid in Hyundai’s ExoBaby ad. Prepare to have nightmares for a week.
Next Year’s Halloween Costume: Hyundai’s ExoBaby
Are you ready for the big reveal? Don’t look directly into its eyes.
We were too stupefied to come up with a caption
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
We’ll give you a moment to react and find a clean pair of pants.
The following footage is from Hyundai’s ExoBaby commercial, advertising the Korean brand’s next innovative product. Now, your baby will be safe whenever it falls down the stairs thanks to Advanced High Strength Steel. Just look at how proportionally-natural pint-size Mega Man is after tumbling down the steps.
It’s the Apple baby version of the Iron Man suit
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
Still not impressed (or horrified)? Perhaps it’s time to discover ExoBaby’s Smart Trunk, which opens whenever the child needs to relieve itself (complete with delicious fart sound effects and sighs of bliss).
Nope. Nothing to say. Moving on…
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
However, none of that compares to the terrifying Christopher Nolan-esque ending, when the narrator reveals a shocking reality:
“Let’s be honest, the baby in the suit is YOU!”
WAIT, WHAT?
If you hadn’t figured out already, Hyundai’s ExoBaby is really a metaphor for the 2015 Sonata. The features of the hi-tech suit (which include such legitimately impressive features as Turbo GDi, Lane Departure Warning, Forward Collision Warning, and Smart Parking Assist) are the same as those offered in the latest Sonata. Essentially, you’re a child in a car that’s packed with features, “like a baby in an exoskeleton.”
Great, who gave the baby Novocaine?
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
This won’t be the only time you’ll see Hyundai’s ExoBaby, though. The video is the first step in a “viral campaign” according to the crew in the behind-the-scenes footage.
The automaker set out to sell the Sonata in a “funny and unique way that [shows] Hyundai always care about customers in various moments of life.” While we fully believe that, we’re not sure parading a misshapen child was the best way to prove it.
This puppet looks more natural than the final version
Photo: Hyundai Worldwide via YouTube
Clearly the production crew put a lot of effort into the commercial, but it’s not their fault–CGI babies never look normal. Never. The proportions–especially in this case–just don’t match up; nor do an infant’s face with the body of a more-developed, walking one-year-old.
We’re fans of Hyundai, but the next time the brand messes with a child, we’ll have to call Robocop on ’em.
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