Hundreds of children were left terrified and traumatised after a movie theatre played horror film The Curse of The Weeping Woman instead of Detective Pikachu.

The massive mixup occurred during a screening in Canada - and was tweeted in real-time by Screen Rant journalist Ryan George.

The trouble began early when the trailers started. Instead of a kid-friendly teaser for a film about cute stuffed toys, children were subjected to snippets from Annabelle Comes Home - a supernatural horror film starring an evil doll.

"The theatre I'm in is playing a trailer for Annabelle Comes Home before Detective Pikachu LOOK AWAY CHILDREN OH NO," George tweeted.