A Vue cinema has apologised after a horror film was mistakenly played before a children's film.

Parents who took their children to see the animated flick Migration were in for a shock when the trailer for 15-rated Black Christmas played beforehand - showing someone being stabbed with an icicle.

According to Jeana Palmer, who took her children Molly, 11, and Isaac, 10, to the Eastleigh cinema on Thursday, February 8, parents dashed out to get the trailer stopped, with many children left in tears.

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Daily Echo: Holly, Jeana, and Isaac PalmerThe 36-year-old was left 'disgusted and on edge' after the 2019 horror film trailer played.

She said: “As soon as the music turned, I knew it was inappropriate.

“My son found it really upsetting and has continued to see certain images from the film at bedtime and is suffering with sleep.

“The film itself was quite innocent but because of the trailer beforehand he was scared of parts of the film that otherwise he would never have been scared of.”

Daily Echo: She added: “I wouldn’t have minded if the film had a higher age rating, but it was a U, so it wasn’t appropriate in the slightest and there was one child as young as four in the cinema.”

The trailer for Black Christmas features multiple acts of violence – including someone being stabbed with an icicle, as well as a second person being stabbed in the back with a kitchen knife.

It also includes an implied neck break as well as sharp jump scares.

Jeana noted that when she raised the issue with the cinema’s manager – first when the trailer was playing and again after the film had finished – she was met with a ‘lack of empathy'.

She said: “I along with a couple of other parents spoke to the manager, just wanting to get a justification for what happened but he was very vague and defensive.

“Apparently, he’d received emails that this had happened at more than one venue and said it was out of his control.

“We were later offered free tickets by the head office, but it doesn’t seem like a good response to a complaint.”

When contacted by the Echo, a spokesperson for Vue said: “Due to a technical scheduling error from a provider, a non-planned film trailer was shown ahead of a small number of Migration screenings on February 8.

“As soon as we became aware, the trailer was immediately removed across all screenings.

“We are working with the film distributor to make sure this does not happen again, and we apologise to the affected customers.”