Twix has dug up its strangest mascot for a second season. Zombie Claus, the undead Santa at the center of the brand’s invented “Hallowmas” holiday, is back in a 40-second hero spot that landed on the official TWIX YouTube channel on October 5, 2026, the day the campaign launched in the U.S. This Twix Hallowmas commercial keeps the premise simple: half Halloween, half Christmas, two bars in one pack.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
We open in a dim suburban living room dressed for October: jack-o’-lanterns glowing on side tables, a skeleton by the staircase, warm table lamps doing most of the lighting. A teenage girl in a striped top is scrolling her phone when she turns and finds a figure standing in her house – a rotting, milky-eyed Santa with a matted beard and a moth-eaten red suit. “Happy Hallowmas,” he rasps. “I’m Zombie Claus.”
She is not screaming. She is barely interested. “Should I be merry or terrified?” she asks, deadpan. “Both. It’s Halloween and Christmas.” He produces a Twix bar from somewhere inside the costume and hands it over. A second either-or question follows (Adweek hears it as “scared or salivating”), and he answers with the product line: “Both. It’s cookie and candy.” She takes a bite, looks him up and down and delivers the closer: “So, should I sing a carol or bludgeon you with a bat?” Zombie Claus, wounded: “Huh. You’re a little bit ungrateful, ain’t ya?” A wide shot leaves the two of them standing in the doorway before the film cuts to an orange end card: the Twix logo, the Hallowmas wordmark with a jack-o’-lantern face in the “o” and snow and fairy lights on the “mas,” the line “Two Is More Than One,” and a push to TWIX.com/Hallowmas for a chance to win prizes.
CREDITS
Brand: Twix (Mars Wrigley). Campaign: “Hallowmas,” under the brand platform “Two Is More Than One.” Film: 40-second hero spot, posted as “2026 TWIX HALLOWMAS Zombie Claus Lore”; the channel also carries a 16-second companion video. Creative agency: adam&eve\TBWA. Production company: Rouge Films. Media and partnerships: Publicis Media. PR and contest: Weber Shandwick. Client: Allison Miazga-Bedrick, vice president of marketing, seasonal portfolio at Mars. Sources: Adweek, the Mars press release of October 5, 2026 (PR Newswire), DesignRush and the official YouTube upload. No director, cast, DOP, editor or music credit for the 2026 film appears in these sources.
THE EXECUTION
The smartest decision here is tonal. Instead of playing Zombie Claus as a jump scare, the film plays him as an awkward guest, and lets the girl’s total lack of fear carry the comedy. It is the right read on the audience: teenagers who grew up on horror memes are not going to be frightened by a Santa with bad skin, so the joke becomes his need for approval. The prosthetic-style makeup is genuinely gross in close-up, with cracked gray skin and filmy eyes, and the warm, low-key lighting keeps it closer to a cozy Halloween movie than to a slasher.
The script is built on a pattern of twos, which is the whole Twix brief in miniature: merry or terrified, cookie or candy, carol or bat. Each “Both” is a product claim disguised as a punchline, and the structure is clean enough to survive a 15-second cutdown. The bat line is the only moment with real bite, and it is smart to give it to the girl rather than the monster.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the cast commits to the deadpan, the mascot is distinctive enough to own a season, and the “two holidays, two bars” logic is the rare seasonal idea that actually connects back to the product.
What doesn’t: the spot is a two-hander with very little happening. For 40 seconds, it is almost entirely shot-reverse-shot in one room, and once you understand the “Both” pattern, the middle beat lands as filler. The Christmas half of Hallowmas is also underplayed – apart from the suit and the end card’s fairy lights, this is a Halloween ad, so the mashup the brand keeps selling never fully shows up on screen. And the end card spends its time on a contest URL rather than the bar, which says the real job of this film is to feed a social campaign: the $20,000 fan contest, an October-long takeover of Twix social channels and a Halloween night appearance in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There is also the question of novelty. Last year’s Hallowmas debut was, according to a LinkedIn post from one of its directors, made with generative AI video tools; this year’s film at least looks and feels like a crafted live-action piece, but the character is no longer a surprise, and the script does not add much lore despite the title.
VERDICT
“Zombie Claus Lore” is a likeable, well-cast seasonal spot that understands its audience and ties its gimmick neatly to the product truth of two bars in one pack. The girl’s deadpan and the “ungrateful” button are worth the watch. But it is thin: one room, one joke repeated three times, and an end card that sells a sweepstakes harder than a candy bar. A solid sequel for a mascot with real potential, not yet the breakout it could be. Rating: 3 out of 5.
