‘Peppa Pig’ Screening Terrifies Children After Trailers Show Horror Scenes, Leaves Them in Tears

Paula Liu
By Paula Liu
April 9, 2019Life
share
‘Peppa Pig’ Screening Terrifies Children After Trailers Show Horror Scenes, Leaves Them in Tears
A picture of a theater screening room. [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screening.Room.jpg)]

Eager children waiting to watch the new Peppa Pig movie in England were horrified when pre-show horror movie trailers left the young audience in tears.

Parents of the children momentarily led their children out of Empire Cinema in Ipswich, only to return after the trailers for “Ma” and “Brightburn” were done, according to Fox News.

Charlie Jones, one of the journalists for the BBC, said she took her 2-year-old daughter, Annie, and her 10-month-old son, Fred, to watch the film, but when the horror movie trailers popped up on the big screen, she covered up her daughter’s eyes to keep her from taking in the terrifying images in the trailers.

Cover your eyes, Peppa!!!

Posted by Animation Magazine on Monday, April 8, 2019

“Normally I would expect her [my daughter] to be singing and dancing when watching something like [Peppa Pig] but she was just really subdued,” Jones said, according to Fox News. “I tried to cover her eyes during the trailers and told her they were silly film for mummies and daddies, but there were lots of kids crying and she was very confused and started crying too.”

Many other parents were also horrified, which caused a lot of them to speak out about the inappropriate trailers that preceded the normally happy movie screening.

Both movie trailers featured violence, blood, and content that was not age-appropriate for children who were watching Peppa Pig.

The trailer for Ma includes shots of torture, dead bodies, fire and jump cuts to scary masks. Brightburn, meanwhile,…

Posted by The Guardian on Tuesday, April 9, 2019

According to Fox News, Jones said she was angry with the managers after the incident. She told the media that the movie screening was supposed to be a special event for her daughter, and according to Jones, despite sitting through a pretty chaotic movie screening, she didn’t really understand what had transpired.

Jones said her daughter calmed down after the incident, but she kept on asking about the mask that was seen during one of the trailers, according to BBC.

“Annie is very imaginative and scared of monsters and things like that at the moment,” Jones said.

She said that the day out with her daughter was supposed to be a fun family outing, but instead, it horrified them. “You go to the movies and you expect it to be a safe family out,” Jones said. “You don’t expect her to be exposed to anything, which could do harm.”

A spokeswoman for the Empire Cinemas apologized for any distress caused by the incident, and told BBC that they would look into it.

“As soon as the staff on site were made aware of the situation, the program was stopped and trailers were taken off-screen immediately,” the spokeswoman in a statement, according to the BBC. “We do sincerely apologize for this and for any distress caused and will be reviewing our internal procedures to ascertain how this came to be.”

Similar Incidents

According to Gizmodo, this wasn’t the first time something like this happened. Back in April 2018, the trailer for “Hereditary” was shown before the screening of the film, “Peter Rabbit.”

Parents were outraged at the mishap, with them telling the theater to stop the trailer while covering their children’s eyes and ears.

“It was dreadful,” one of the parents, who was at the screening of “Peter Rabbit,” told Western Australia Today. “Very quickly you could tell this was not a kid’s film. Parents were yelling at the projectionist to stop, covering their kids’ eyes and ears.”

The woman said some parents went out to get a staff member from the theater, but even the staff member did not know what to do. According to the woman, some of the parents took their children and left the theater altogether.

“Eventually, a senior staff member came in with a walkie talkie and he shut the screen off,” the woman said. “To his credit he apologized and offered us complimentary movie passes to make up for it.”

The screening of the film proceeded without any further complaints of horror or scary scenes.

ntd newsletter icon
Sign up for NTD Daily
What you need to know, summarized in one email.
Stay informed with accurate news you can trust.
By registering for the newsletter, you agree to the Privacy Policy.
Comments