TV advertising watchdog has censured the trailer for Saw 3D because of a lodged complaint by a 10-year-old child, the Guardian reported.

The Advertising Standards Authority claimed that the ad should not have been broadcasted on TV before 9 p.m., which was when the child saw it and complained about it.

Before appearing on TV, the trailer had already been approved as suitable for earlier screenings by Clearcast, another regulator of broadcasted ads.

Scenes shown in the ad include deadly metal restraints falling on cinema viewers with 3D glasses on, as well as the horrified faces of men and women who were probably being tortured.

The child was apparently watching the Gadget Show on Channel 4 when it saw the trailer and called the ad watchdog around 8.30 p.m., saying that the ad was “inappropriately scheduled and distressing”.

What Clearcast argued in its defence was that the viewers watching the commercial after 7.30 p.m. were most likely old enough to “make the distinction that the ad was for a film and therefore clearly based on fantasy”.

However, the ASA disagreed, saying that many scenes in the trailer portrayed people who were afraid of being physically hurt and that the shot in which the metal restraints trapped the unsuspecting cinema audience could be easily linked to “a recognisably real situation”.

The ad watchdog’s final statement on the matter was:

“We concluded that a post-9 p.m. restriction ought to have been applied, to minimise the possibility of young children seeing the ad.”

Whether the 3D effects in the trailer increased the distressing viewing experience for the child was not made clear.

Original story here: http://www.3dtvwatcher.co.uk/horror-3d-movie-ad-censured-due-to-small-childs-complaint-1301/