Parents Appalled By Halloween Decorations Displayed In Children's Play Area — 'This Can't Be What I Think It Is'
There's spooky and then there's downright macabre. Is the latter really appropriate for kids?
Evgeny Atamanenko | Shutterstock Halloween is all about giving kids a good old spooky laugh, so naturally, Halloween decorations are a part of any kids' space in October.
But one children's play space in the U.K. went well beyond the usual ghosts, witches, and pumpkins, and its display has left many parents furious.
Parents are appalled by the Halloween decorations in a children's play area that included body bags.
Rugrats and Halfpints in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, about 100 miles west of London, is an award-winning play space for kids that includes all kinds of climbing structures and "soft play" spaces for tykes to tumble and jump and generally run amok, as well as a cafe for parents to enjoy.
It's a great spot to blow off steam and a perfect location for a kid's birthday party — so you'd expect Rugrats and Halfpints' choice of Halloween decorations to be more in the spooky and whimsical vein rather than something that left one parent "appalled" and another doing a "double take."
Yet, towards the back of a room, behind a large play structure, hangs a series of body bags festooned with "caution" tape.
The body bags disguised as Halloween decor are hanging from a play structure and lashed together with bungee cords in a way that evokes a grisly murder.
I'll admit, I think today's parents are overreacting about absolutely everything 99% of the time. But this "decor" is… um… gruesome? It's not just that they're body bags — they're body bags tied off with what appear to be bungee cords around the neck of the corpse inside, like a murderer would do before burying them in the woods or something.
But instead of being buried, Rugrats and Halfpints had them hanging from a play structure like a rack of meat. The whole thing looks like something out of a serial killer documentary.
It's grisly and macabre on a level that wouldn't inspire a second thought in one of those haunted houses many of us love to visit this time of year. But in what is essentially a daycare playroom? Um…. guys? Is everyone working there of sound mind?!
"When I saw them I did a double take," one mom told the UK's Sky News. "Surely that can't be what I think it is? I just didn't want to have to explain to my kid what they were."
Imagine that — "Well, pumpkin, sometimes people go absolutely insane and slash someone's throat from ear to ear, then wrap them in black plastic and bury them in the local forest preserve. Now run along and play!"
The children's play area quickly apologized and removed the decorations.
To its credit, Rugrats and Halfpints has been understanding and accommodating about the mishap. In a statement to Sky News, a spokesperson said that they've never received complaints before but were taking the matter seriously regardless.
"This is the first time someone has brought it to our attention," the statement read, "so of course, due to this, we will take them down immediately. It wasn't to cause distress, and we apologise this is how they have felt."
Naturally, some felt the uproar was ridiculous and thought the parents who complained should lighten up — people do tend to take ultimately harmless things way too seriously nowadays. But another parent, who said in an X post that they'd seen the decorations in person, summed up the issue perfectly.
Saying the display reminded them of "something from an ISIS video," they pointed out that there's a difference between "spooky" and "horror." It's hard to argue that this display didn't cross that line, and "horror" probably doesn't belong next to the kiddies' ball pit.
Of course, the inappropriate nature of the situation also inspired a few jokes — the notion of having something so twisted and grisly in a kids' play area IS inherently hilarious (at least for an outsider).
One woman on X joked that Rugrats and Halfpints were "visionaries" whose decor ideas are simply too avant-garde for parents to understand.
Hey, at least we can laugh about it! And thank our lucky stars this happened in the U.K. and not the U.S., because if this had happened at the local Gymboree, American parents would have already filed suit in the International Criminal Court in The Hague!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.