This Might Be the Freakiest iPhone Commercial Ever Made

It's got a burning clown

There’s nothing like setting a clown on fire to spark viewers’ curiosity.

Apple crams all manner of weird cinematic sh*t into “Capture,” an outré, over-the-top :60 for the iPhone 16 from director Aoife McArdle (Severance).

At one point, after a violent cab crash, a clown emerges, covered in flames. But he’s still grinning. Such a pro.

We see ravens, a Space Odyssey-style astronaut, archers and noir-y bits. It’s highly stylized, set to the deep-club groove “Roll the Credits,” and spotlights the handset’s slow-mo and slow-down features.

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Yep, just your typical Saturday night in Cupertino.

Overkill? Another Apple product demo triumph? This one probably floats somewhere in between.

Touted as an homage to cinema tropes, it’s odd enough to capture our attention and vividly hypes functionality.

But clowns are always creepy (more so when engulfed in flames). And leaning into “edginess” hasn’t given Apple much to smile about these days.