The Advertising Standards Authority will not uphold complaints regarding a bus poster for the 2019 horror film ‘Pet Sematary’.
The poster, seen in April, featured an image of children with animal masks and carrying various object – including a spade, crucifix and wheelbarrow – while walking through the woods, with crucifixes in the background. Beneath this, text read ‘Sometimes dead is better’.
Three complainants challenged whether the ad was ‘irresponsible’ because they believed it might encourage suicide, while another challenged whether it would cause ‘unjustifiable distress’ to people who were grieving the loss of loved ones.
Paramount Pictures, which made the film, said there were three separate blocks of text within the ad. The first read ‘Based on a novel by the author of IT…’, while the second, smaller block of text read ‘In cinemas April 4’.
DISTASTEFUL
Paramount believed that those who saw the ad, including children and young people, would understand the third block of text, ‘Sometimes dead is better’, to be a promotional strapline for a horror film – the strapline was a quote from the novel by Stephen King and also used in the promotion of the 1989 adaptation.
A spokesman for the ASA said: “We considered that although the ad featured children and referenced death, it did not go so far as to encourage suicide, amongst young people in particular, or otherwise. We considered that while the text ‘Sometimes dead is better’ might be distasteful, it was in keeping with the content of the film and that it was not unusual for death to be referenced in relation to a horror film.”
The ASA concluded that no further action would be necessary.
