Halloween event forced to apologise to parents over display depicting ‘murdered’ baby dolls

Halloween event organisers have been forced to apologise after their spooky ‘dead dolls’ window display depicting ‘murdered’ babies beside a ‘bloodied’ meat cleaver left residents furious.

Frightmare, which is running its 20th annual Halloween festival in Gloucestershire, received an angry note on the window on Saturday asking for the removal of a spooky crime scene.

The note from ‘concerned local parents and residents’ complained about the display featuring dolls with their limbs in bent positions and read ‘MURDERED BABIES? DEAD DOLLS?’. 

Georgia Wilson, 27 – who made the display – told MailOnline the team hadn’t meant to offend anyone and the ‘dead dolls’ part of the note made them giggle as they ‘were never alive to begin with’.

Halloween event organisers have been forced to apologise after their spooky ‘dead dolls’ window display depicting ‘murdered’ babies beside a ‘bloodied’ meat cleaver left residents furious

The note from 'concerned local parents and residents' complained about the display featuring dolls with their limbs in bent positions and read 'MURDERED BABIES? DEAD DOLLS?'

The note from ‘concerned local parents and residents’ complained about the display featuring dolls with their limbs in bent positions and read ‘MURDERED BABIES? DEAD DOLLS?’

The note said the locals did not want their children to see the ‘unsuitable’ scene and urged festival organisers to remove it.

Images show the window display covered with old book cuttings which have been drenched in fake blood.

Several baby dolls that are mainly laying face down with their arms and legs bent in different directions are shown with prosthetic blood splatters on their backs.

A couple of the dolls appear to be burnt as they lay amongst a ‘bloodied’ meat cleaver.

Miss Wilson, who works for Frightmare, ended up having to remove the dolls from the crime scene and later issued an apology to residents.

The initial complaint note, that was typed up and stuck on the window, read: ‘MURDERED BABIES? DEAD DOLLS?

Frightmare, which is running its 20th annual Halloween festival in Gloucestershire, received the angry note on the window on Saturday asking for the removal of a spooky crime scene

Frightmare, which is running its 20th annual Halloween festival in Gloucestershire, received the angry note on the window on Saturday asking for the removal of a spooky crime scene

‘We do not want our children to see this unsuitable window scene. Please remove as it is not appropriate for all passing by to see.

‘Thank you. Concerned local parents and residents.’

The organisers later attached their apology above the notice, writing: ‘Dear concerned locals and residents,

‘We would like to clarify that no babies (or dolls) were harmed in the making of this window display.

‘However, we apologise for any distress caused and have removed the doll parts as requested.

‘Happy Halloween.’

The organisers later attached their apology above the notice, writing: 'Dear concerned locals and residents, We would like to clarify that no babies (or dolls) were harmed in the making of this window display'

The organisers later attached their apology above the notice, writing: ‘Dear concerned locals and residents, We would like to clarify that no babies (or dolls) were harmed in the making of this window display’

Miss Wilson, who works for Frightmare, ended up having to remove the dolls from the crime scene and later issued an apology to residents

Miss Wilson, who works for Frightmare, ended up having to remove the dolls from the crime scene and later issued an apology to residents

Frightmare posted a video on TikTok and Facebook showing off the notices, whilst writing: ‘Public apology.

‘Georgia is no longer allowed to do window displays.

‘We’ve sent her to the mirror room, so she can take a long, hard look at herself.’

The video has gained more than 38,000 views and comments from viewers who were shocked by the complaint.

One person said: ‘Please put some adult-sized mannequin body parts instead, maybe with a sign saying “here lies concerned local residents and parents”‘

Another wrote: ‘Ridiculous! We live there and we love Frightmare!’

A third added: ‘Give Georgia a raise!’

While another person commented: ‘I loved things like that as a kid, I turned out normal!’

The video has gained more than 38,000 views and comments from viewers who were shocked by the complaint

The video has gained more than 38,000 views and comments from viewers who were shocked by the complaint

Speaking to MailOnline, Miss Wilson said: ‘It was my first time doing the window I was quite excited. We had four and I did two of them.

‘It was actually the other one I was more worried about. It was a hellscape and I put a cross with nails in it so I was like “I wonder if that will be touchy?” 

‘I found some very cool biology books and rusty tools so thought It would be interesting to make it look rustic. We had some left over dolls and I thought to chop off the arms and legs and put it at the bottom so it would cover the bottom bit. 

‘It wasn’t my intention to offend anyone. Once we got the note I didn’t want to apologise as I thought it was worded quite strongly. 

‘I mean, murdered babies was never my intention and dead dolls made us giggle as they were never alive to begin with. 

Speaking to MailOnline, Miss Wilson said: 'It was actually the other one I was more worried about. It was a hellscape and I put a cross with nails in it so I was like "I wonder if that will be touchy?"

Speaking to MailOnline, Miss Wilson said: ‘It was actually the other one I was more worried about. It was a hellscape and I put a cross with nails in it so I was like “I wonder if that will be touchy?”

She said: 'We had some left over dolls and I thought to chop off arms and legs and put it at the bottom so it would cover the bottom bit'

She said: ‘We had some left over dolls and I thought to chop off arms and legs and put it at the bottom so it would cover the bottom bit’

‘We thought we would appease the locals and remove them as we used to do the festival on a farm and have just moved into the city centre so don’t want to annoy the people here. We have a window full of coffins so I thought that would be worse. 

‘We just put the doll parts away and they wrote on our note saying thank you and they came back and removed their note so I removed ours. 

‘I think you know, we are a Halloween festival so there was always going to be a bit of protest about something.’ 

Several other window displays at the event include a hell throne made from plastic skulls, a coffin with nails hammered into a crucifix and overflowing biohazard waste containers.

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