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RWS puts up Halloween ‘memorials for victims of mall collapse’

An artist impression of the Zombie Laser Tag Experience, one of the highlights for this year’s Halloween Horror Nights 7 event at Universal Studios Singapore. (Photo: USS)
An artist impression of the Zombie Laser Tag Experience, one of the highlights for this year’s Halloween Horror Nights 7 event at Universal Studios Singapore. (Photo: USS)

If you happen to be waiting at a bus stop in Bugis Village or Clarke Quay over the next few weeks, you might come across a “memorial wall” erected for the “victims” of the “Southpoint Mall collapse”.

There was no such collapse in Singapore on “17 August” and the structure is just a gimmick to promote this year’s Halloween Horror Nights 7 at Universal Studios Singapore (USS).

To render more realism, the advertisement includes accompanying flowers and photographs of some of “the people whose lives were innocently taken” – one of the themed haunted houses at the event happens to be the “Death Mall”. The event also features a zombie laser tag experience, scare zones and haunted houses.

The advertisement follows the success of similar ones in the previous two years, including Chinese talismans with pop-out ‘hands’ in 2016 and spooky paper effigies in 2015. Apart from Bugis Village and Clarke Quay, the advertisement is also erected at the bus stops at National Library and Hotel Rendezvous, and will be in place until 13 September.

But the advertisement has received a number of negative reactions online, with some calling it a “tasteless publicity stunt” and “very inauspicious and eerie during the seventh month (Hungry Ghost Festival).”

In response to queries from Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore, Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), which is home to USS, said it is aware that the advertisement has “piqued public interest, especially as the Hungry Ghost Festival approaches”, with commuters taking pictures of the advertisement and commenting about it on social media. The objective is to promote the event in “an eye-catching, original and unconventional way.”

“This year’s theme, which revolves around seven new incarnations of deadly sins, is amongst our most disturbing themes and we would like to create excitement for Singapore’s premier scare event,” RWS said.

Halloween Horror Nights 7 takes place over 14 nights from 29 September to 29 October. Here is a look back at the event last year:

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