Final Destination 5 has already finished its theatrical run, but has just had the poster promoting its upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release (available to view below) banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA); who claim the image was “likely to cause fear and undue distress to children.”
Warner Bros. claims that the poster (which depicts a human skull taking a battering from a number of metal rods), and the skull depicted within, is a “fantasy image” that “accurately reflected the content of the film in an appropriate manner without causing excessive fear or distress”, but the ASA disagree considering “the image was likely to catch the attention of children”, and the fact that they received a number of complaints from parents who claim their children had become visibly upset after seeing the poster.
Three of the complainants say their children became distressed when they saw the ad printed on the side of a London bus, and the ban now means that the image will have to be removed from not only buses, but billboards in the London Underground (a location the ASA class as an “untargeted medium”), as it’s no longer permitted to appear in its original form.
Though whether or not the ban causes a negative effect on the sales of Final Destination 5 Blu-rays and DVDs (which are due to be released in the UK on Boxing Day) remains to be seen; as a new campaign will obviously be rolled out asap, and horror movies often benefit from the publicity such a ban brings.
Matt Wheeldon.
Source: The ASA.
