Jump-scare YouTube trailer for ‘The Nun’ causes controversy for terrifying viewers

If you get a warning to turn down your speakers, beware....

The Nun the latest spin-off from the incredibly popular The Conjuring series. By all reports, it’s pretty scary. It’s a horror movie – that’s what it is supposed to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzD9zGcUNrw However, it is not the film that is causing controversy for being too scary – it is the advertising. In particular, the YouTube pre-roll adverts, which are terrifying people who are not expecting them. (It's not the trailer above, FYI) The adverts begin with a warning to viewers to turn down their volume – which according to Polygon, is then followed by “a grotesque image from the film pops up, accompanied by a large bang and piercing scream”. Because viewers aren’t expecting it, the ad received a lot of negative reaction online. Especially when it appears before videos that have nothing to do with The Nun or horror films in general. There is a whole Reddit thread of complaints. “I just got an ad where a fucking tarantula crawls out of a girl's mouth when I just wanted to listen to The Offspring and I'm fucking pissed now,” wrote one user. A tweet warning about it has even got 84,000 retweets. https://twitter.com/bbydvas/status/1028690821715910656 Adverts for the upcoming Slender Man film have also gotten a similar reaction. Polygon have also suggested that the adverts might be against YouTube’s code of conduct – they highlight that their policies say that policies state that “promotions containing violent language, gruesome or disgusting imagery, or graphic images or accounts of physical trauma,” and “promotions that are likely to shock or scare” are prohibited. This usually refers to footage of real life violence – eg crime scenes, snuff videos etc, - and a fiction horror movie may not fall under this.