Parents Shocked at Horror Movie Screening During Peter Rabbit

Parents shocked when a horror movie clip was played before a screening of Peter Rabbit.

A Perth woman said she had taken her sister’s children on an outing to Event Cinemas in Innaloo when the trailer for the horror film, Hereditary, played before the screening of Beatrix Potter’s classic children’s story.

Shocked parents were scrambling to shield their children’s eyes from the two minute trailer, WA Today reported.

Jane said the cinema was full of people and at least 40 kids were present when the lights came down and the horror trailer started to play.

She said the moment the trailer started people knew something wasn’t right.

‘It was dreadful. 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,’ she said.

The two minute trailer shows scenes of scissors being pinched into a dead pigeon’s neck, a corpse laid out in a coffin, a boy bloodily smashing his head into a desk and a man on fire.

The film has not been released in Australia yet but has a MA15+ rating, while Peter Rabbit has been rated PG.

Jane said some parents scrambled to stop their children seeing the trailer. Some fled the cinema and others rushed to get a staff member.

‘Eventually a senior staff member came in with a walkie talkie and he shut the screen off. To his credit he apologised and offered us complimentary movie passes to make up for it.’

A spokesperson for parent company, Event Hospitality & Entertainment Limited, said they were investigating how the incident happened.

Oh gosh! Have you ever had a similar experience?

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20 Comments

- - ella12 said
  - 01 May 2018
    1:54 pm
That is terrible. Glad they got complimentary tickets though. I had a similar experience (not with my child). A friend and I went to see a comedy and instead there was a horrific foreign film on, it gave me the creeps. They cinema apologized but unfortunately no free tickets.

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 01 May 2018
    10:33 am
That’s disgraceful! I don’t like movies like this myself, let alone subjecting kids to this. Sounds like it was just plain evil!

- - tessie said
  - 01 May 2018
    10:14 am
This would have ruined the moment for these children who were looking forward to the movie. Cudos to the senior staff member who came out to apologise and offer complimentary tickets.

- - rachel1970 said
  - 30 Apr 2018
    6:45 pm
How disgraceful, those poor kids having to see this. I have been in the cinema watching a kiddie movie with my kids when an add for The Grey movies (50 shades darker or something) came on, I was horrified as it showed very suggestive scenes including bondage, but I think this one is worse.

- - leveestee said
  - 30 Apr 2018
    5:57 pm
The poor little pets! I hope all of the mothers successfully shielded them from at least the images however i imagine the sound was rather eerie too though.

- - rovermum said
  - 30 Apr 2018
    11:54 am
OMG, that is terrible and could have been so traumatic for some kids. It was obviously a mistake on the cinema’s part and thankfully they dealt with it quickly and providing complimentary tickets was the right thing to do. I imagine some of the parents then spent the day talking through the experience with their children.

- - Amanda Holland said
  - 30 Apr 2018
    9:49 am
Glad they got on top of it quickly.

- - mom93821 said
  - 30 Apr 2018
    5:43 am
We had a similar experience a few years ago and we complained about an inappropriate trailer.

- - al2ab said
  - 29 Apr 2018
    11:25 pm
I feel for these parents, and it is a something the digital programmer of the cinema will have to explain as there is no excuse for that.

So glad our cinema had fun child programs before the movie

- - mom297125 said
  - 28 Apr 2018
    4:17 pm
Ohh no……i feel for all the parents and children who attend the viewing. Sounds like cinema staff handled the situation very well.

- - mom112217 said
  - 28 Apr 2018
    4:10 pm
A huge mistake to make,hopefully it won’t happen again!

- - Ellen said
  - 28 Apr 2018
    9:48 am
Oh no, that is NOT good !

- - jools41 said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    11:05 pm
Massive oops there.

- - deb_gs said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    8:15 pm
When I was a child, I went to a screening of The Caravan of Courage with my siblings. A short film showed prior was of a hitchhiker stopping a car and chasing a woman.
At the end of the short film, there was a stunned silence.
I still recall the short film and how awful and scary it was decades later.

- - BellaB said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    6:26 pm
This isn’t supposed to happen. At least they apologised.

- - ashna9 said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    5:10 pm
How scary! I bet there’s a staff member in big toruble!

- - nadine_hill said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    4:14 pm
This is terrible! How could that have been allowed to happen?!

- - Cookfromscratchmum said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    1:25 pm
Poor kids it must have been very scary for them I took the kids with some friends last week and we watched Peter rabbit at Hoyts it was fantastic but we didn’t see any horror movies trailer played or anything

- - mom199367 said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    12:20 pm
How horrible for the kids and their parents! I know I saw a film I wasn’t meant to as a child (snuck look from passage at Carrie!) and had nightmares for days.

- - mom90758 said
  - 27 Apr 2018
    11:24 am
Oh! This must have been horrifying. So young kids exposed to a horror movie. At least if was offered compensation, but I hope no kids will suffer nightmares from what they saw.