A screening of "Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun" had a less than enjoyable beginning. For as-yet unknown reasons, the audience of children was treated to a series of horror movie trailers which showed before the feature.
Panicked parents hastily either covered the eyes of their children or escorted them out of the Empire Cinema theater in Ipswich, England. The kids were reportedly left crying when exposed to trailers to upcoming films "Ma" and "Brightburn." "Ma" is a psychological thriller starring Octavia Spencer and "Brightburn" is a superhero horror film produced by "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn. Both trailers contain graphic violence, blood and scary imagery.
BBC journalist Charlie Jones made a particularly notable stink following the incident.
"Normally I would expect [my daughter] to be singing and dancing when watching something like [Peppa Pig], but she was just really subdued," she said of her two-year-old daughter Annie. "I tried to cover her eyes during the trailers and told her they were silly films for mommies and daddies, but there were lots of kids crying and she was very confused and started crying too."
"I went mad at [the manager]," she added. "It was meant to be a special day for Annie. I don't think he understands the impact of it. Annie is very imaginative and scared of monsters and things like that at the moment."
A spokeswoman for Empire Cinemas issued a statement to BBC saying: "As soon as the staff on site were made aware of the situation, the program was stopped and trailers were taken off-screen immediately. 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."