As a father, it's a frequent fear of mine that I'll take my daughter to see a family film, only to have her accidently subjected the terrors of a horror movie trailer...not really, she watches horror flicks with me all the time.
But parents attending a screening of Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun at Empire Cinema in Ipswich, England weren't so chill about the matter, as their children were apparently "horrified" when the trailers for the James Gunn-produced horror/superhero movie BrightBurn and Blumhouse’s Ma played before the animated family flick about a friendly pig, BBC reports. According to some adults, many children left the theater in tears...whoops!
“Normally I would expect her to be singing and dancing when watching something like [Peppa Pig] but she was just really subdued,” Charlie Jones told BBC, describing the the experience she and her 2-year-old daughter had at the terrifying event. “I tried to cover her eyes during the trailers and told her they were silly films for mummies and daddies, but there were lots of kids crying and she was very confused and started crying too.”
Trying to smooth the mishap over, a spokeswoman for Empire stated, “As soon as the staff on site were made aware of the situation, the programme was stopped and trailers were taken off-screen immediately. We do sincerely apologise for this and for any distress caused and will be reviewing our internal procedures to ascertain how this came to be.”
BrightBurn has been rated “R” for “horror violence/bloody images, and language,“ and Ma has been “R” for “violent/disturbing material, language throughout, sexual content, and for teen drug and alcohol use.”
You can check out both of the trailers below. Just make sure your children aren't present!