This story was all over the Yahoo homepage late yesterday, and it goes that a theater in Nottingham, UK sent children and parents running for the exits when they accidentally showed them Paranormal Activity 4 instead of Madagascar 3, like they paid for. EEK! THAT’S NOT EVEN THE RIGHT NUMBER SEQUEL!

According to a blog from Yahoo! Movies U.K., the parents grabbed their kids and ran from the theater. They suspected something was amiss when the opening scene of “Paranormal Activity 4″ featured (SPOILER ALERT) a corpse hurtling toward the camera. The little kids, who were expecting sassy penguins and talking zebras, weren’t amused.

Natasha Lewis of Bulwell in Nottingham, who took her 8-year-old son Dylan to see talking animated animals, said the unexpected horror movie scene was “enough to make grown men jump, so you can imagine the terror in these young faces.”

She continued: “Everybody just scrambled for the exits, all you could hear were children crying and screaming. Everyone was very upset. I’ve watched a few horror films in my time but the ‘Paranormal Activity’ films are the scariest since ‘The Exorcist’. It was only about two minutes worth of the film but it was enough to scar them for life. There were parents and kids in there, including some children who were younger than Dylan.”

“They started playing the movie and I thought – this doesn’t look right. And then I recognised the opening sequence as a flash back to the first movie, which I saw a couple of years ago.”
“It was only about two minutes worth of the film but it was enough to scar them for life. There were parents and kids in there, including some children who were younger than Dylan.” [Yahoo]

Gee, why does this sound like total made-up marketing horsesh*t? Could it be the fake-outraged marketing testimonial? “I’m telling you, don’t leave a KFC spicy chicken snacker on your coffee table, you could cause a housefire! I had one a few years ago and the only way I can describe it is ‘frighteningly zesty.’ They should really warn people, it’s too exxxtreme!”

I’m calling bullsh*t. Isn’t Paranormal Activity shot entirely in found-footage, black-and-white surveillance cam anyway? How’s that scary unless you can read? Those kids would be asleep 10 minutes in. I think Business Dog is behind this story.

Never trust Business Dog. He looks all cute and fluffy but all he really cares about is profit.