Man is living inside a Hollywood billboard to promote Netflix's new thriller movie

Netflix has taken street marketing to a genuinely unsettling new level by locking a man inside a billboard above one of Hollywood's busiest intersections.

The stunt is promoting the streamer's new horror-sci-fi movie The Last House, which follows a family who become inexplicably sealed inside their own home as a sinister threat closes in around them.

To bring that premise to life off-screen, Netflix hired a performer to spend three days confined inside a purpose-built living room set into a billboard structure at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Selma Avenue.

Passersby below can see straight into the space through clear windows, and the man inside has been keeping in touch with the outside world the only way he can: by holding up handwritten messages on a whiteboard. One message spotted by onlookers simply read, ‘What's going on?’

The performer has been communicating with people below using handwritten messages on a whiteboard. (JOEL BARHAMAND/Netflix)

What is The Last House about on Netflix?

The billboard itself has been built to look like an ivy-covered house, complete with a working front door, a drainpipe and a chimney, according to details shared by Netflix.

A line beneath the living room window reads, 'How long can you survive?', mirroring the film's central threat.

That threat plays out in The Last House, which stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as parents Ann and Jason, alongside Riley Chung and Noah Alexander Sosnowski as their children, Ruth and Graham. The family finds themselves trapped without warning inside their own home, gradually realising their neighbours may be suffering an identical fate.

The film's first trailer, released back in June, jumps forward to 'day 1,183' of the family's ordeal, when their front door finally unlocks itself, only for a stranger to appear on the other side asking for help.

The Last House is directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Matthew Robinson, with Gabriel Barbosa and Emma Ho rounding out the cast.

The Last House stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as parents trying to keep their family safe while trapped inside their own home. (Netflix)

How long is the man staying inside the billboard?

According to Netflix, the performer is spending three full days, from August 6 through August 8, living inside the enclosed billboard set.

Netflix said he's been instructed to try to go about his day as normally as possible while stuck inside, using the whiteboard as his only line of communication with the street below.

The company described the stunt as designed to give people driving and walking past a genuine, physical sense of the isolation and confusion the film's characters experience, rather than just seeing it play out on a poster.

The Last House began streaming on Netflix on August 7.