WHAT IS IT? DEPARTMENT : David Lynch. Michael Jackson. Another Add-On to Your Moviegoing Experience

You’ve heard the hisses--filmgoers don’t like being bombarded with ads when they go to the movies. But that hasn’t stopped Sony Entertainment from running a 30-second teaser trailer for “Dangerous,” the long-delayed new Michael Jackson album due Nov. 26 from Sony’s Epic Records subsidiary.

Directed by David Lynch, the clip features a strange assortment of artsy effects, including a flaming volcano that produces a bubble with Michael Jackson’s face inside. According to Sony Pictures Entertainment executive vice president Sid Ganis, the teaser has played in more than 3,000 theaters over the past month--and will soon be released to TV for airing on music-video outlets and “Entertainment Tonight”-type shows.

The clip doesn’t feature any of Jackson’s music or excerpts from his forthcoming videos. But it ends with a one-word reminder: Dangerous . So it’s no wonder moviegoers have been hotly debating: Is it an ad? Or is it a trailer? Or a little bit of both?

“We monitored the reaction in the theaters and I don’t think people perceived it as an advertisement,” Ganis said. “That’s what makes it unique. You really don’t know what it is. It simply offers a series of striking images, including some of Michael Jackson. But it never indicates what it’s promoting. It could be a book, a movie or an album.”

According to Ganis, the clip was largely geared toward raising awareness, much like a teaser trailer, which studios air months before a movie’s release, often with specially shot images created solely for the trailer. “To promote a product today, you’ve got to stretch--and we feel this really stretches,” said Ganis, who would not reveal how much the clip cost. “We felt it was a great way to say to audiences that something was happening with Michael Jackson--and to lay the groundwork for a more specific promotional campaign.”

An informal Calendar survey found moviegoers evenly split. Some were intrigued by the clip, others baffled, others irritated. But if nothing else, the Jackson teaser offers an early glimpse of what Ganis says will be an ambitious “synergy” campaign by Sony to use its corporate clout to cross-promote Sony products. The clip, which plugs Jackson, often played in front of such Sony-financed movies as “The Fisher King.” And while it aired in several independent theater chains, it played in all of the Sony-owned Loews Theatre chain’s 800-plus screens. Many of the clip’s images were produced using Sony high-definition TV techniques.

“There was a time when our companies were just distant relatives,” Ganis said. “Now we’re cousins. And we’re heading for brotherliness. You’re going to see a lot more of this in the future.”