In a scenario straight out of the nightmares of parents everywhere, a theatre full of children were left terrified when the movie theatre played The Curse Of La Llorona, instead of Detective Pikachu.
Screen Rant’s Ryan George (he of Screen Rant Pitch Meetings fame) was in the theatre in Montreal, when the events unfolded. He took to Twitter to tell us the tale.
The trouble started when the trailers came on. First up was Annabelle Comes Home, a supernatural horror sequel about the frankly terrifying Annabelle doll. This was the point George took to Twitter to advise children to “look away”. Advice which may well apply to many adults in the audience as well, since the possessed doll ranks quite highly in creep factor.
Before the trailer had even finished kids were crying, which is unsurprising since it features jump scares galore, but things were about to get worse.
The Joker trailer was next, which is at least less creepy, unless you have a clown phobia that is.
The final trailer went back to the land of terrifying dolls with the Child’s Play remake. Car crashes, knives, blood, even murders. This trailer has it all.
By now the kids were surely all terrified, but the reason for all these inappropriate trailers was about to be revealed. The theatre hadn’t just run the wrong trailers, they had been playing the entirely wrong movie.
George reports that the trailers made way for The Curse of La Llorana, a supernatural horror about a ghost who torments a social worker and her family. Note: La Llorana opens with a scene of a mother drowning her child.
At this point the theatre finally realized their mistake and shut off the movie, saving the children from further trauma.
Moviegoers were all then moved into another theatre, where Detective Pikachu was paused on the screen.
The paused Detective Pikachu suggests that the two movies may have been running simultaneously, but the audiences were switched. This means that while one theatre housed some terrified kids waiting to see Pikachu, another was host to a group of horror fans who had to watch The Secret Life of Pets 2 trailer.