A video from the marketing team of the upcoming third instalment of horror franchise The Ring has captured the moment everyone dreads: a horror movie coming to life in front of us.

The video shows an actress dressed as Rings' horror figure, Sadako, climbing out of a TV screen and scaring the wits out of unsuspecting shoppers looking to buy their latest flat screen.

Reactions of the shoppers range from full-tilt running and screaming to those startled but who clearly share a creepy sense of humour.

It has become a viral sensation on Facebook, amassing more than 4 million shares and well over 160 million views, and has created more impact socially than the highly-anticipated Blade Runner 2049, with its first glimpse trailer scoring less than 200,000 shares and 13 million likes.

This is quite a feat for a potentially tiring horror franchise with no-name actors when pitted against a movie like Blade Runner 2049, which has been 35 years in the making and features Hollywood royalty Harrison Ford and awards sensation Ryan Gosling.

Rings continues the story 13 years on from when investigative reporter Rachel Keller (played by Naomi Watts) first looked into sudden deaths linked to a mysterious video tape.

This time the story centres around Julia (Matilda Lutz) and her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe), who go in search of an urban myth about a mysterious video tape, and in doing so dooms Julia to watch the cursed cassette and find herself facing death in seven days time.

In the days when cinema is battling television streaming, the creative minds who came up with the idea to scare TV shoppers in the hope of getting bums on theatre seats must see the vengeful irony in the premise.

Whether or not the viral trailer (below) will translate into box office sales from February 3, viewers have at least been warned: "First you watch it, then you die."