Horror trailers ruin Puss in Boots

What could be more frightening to a parent than having to attend a crowded Puss in Boots screening chock full of sugar-fed, over-caffeinated children? Explaining to them that there's not really such a thing as a motorcycle rider whose head explodes into flames and that the lady covered in bloody cuts, and contorting in pain is only someone in a costume.

"It's all just make-believe" British parents must have been frantically explaining to their children when trailers for several age-inappropriate horror films were inadvertently allowed to run in a theater packed to see the DreamWorks animated family-adventure film Puss in Boots which opened recently in Great Britain.

Cineworld, a cinema in South London, accidentally screened several 15-rated horror trailers that were meant to be run in front of Underworld Awakening, but instead screened before the animated tale Puss in Boots. A graphic trailer for The Devil Inside which featured a woman covered in blood and writhing with dislocated limbs as well as one for Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in which a skeletonized motorcycle rider whose head bursts into flames before spraying fire at a devil ran in their entirety while shocked parents tried to cover their children's eyes and notify theater management of the mishap. Puss in Boots is U-rated which is equivalent to the kid-friendly G rating in the U.S.

Cineworld managers apologized profusely to movie-goers and launched an investigation into what went wrong and promised action that will prevent it in the future. Wonder if that lazy, inattentive kid is allowed back in the projectionist booth?

While the local Wandsworth authority council is looking into the situation to determine if any rules or licensing guidelines were breached, we hate to imagine the outrage had the unexpected trailers been for The Iron Lady, a film about ultra-conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who bullied, browbeat, intimidated, and otherwise castigated her opponents into submission while she led Great Britain during the '80s.