One woman called it snuff. Others insisted the scene promotes violence against women. 

At issue on Wednesday was a scene at Wallingford’s Fruit House depicting a scantily clad woman being sawed in half. The scene is part of Wallingford’s popular Nightmare on the Ridge Halloween display and beginning Wednesday morning, it was causing outrage. 

“Wallingford’s has decided to include an installation at this event that depicts graphic, sexualized violence against women,” one man wrote on the Wallingford’s Facebook page. “Horror theme is one thing, but this is absolutely inappropriate in a world where violence is real for so many women every day.”

 “The entertainment value of this installation hits too close to actual brutalities levied on women in this community and across the world,” wrote a local woman.

After the scene was spotted by visitors — one of them reported to be a child who was at Wallingford’s to pick apples — word got around that the Halloween display this year features inappropriate material. 

For Wallingford’s owner, Peter Ricker, it’s a little mystifying. The display, with the saw blade whirring into the mannequin’s midsection, has been there for years and as far as he recalls, there have been no complaints. 

“That particular scene has been there almost as long as we’ve had the haunt,” he said. 

Until Wednesday. Starting mid-morning, Ricker began receiving a multitude of phone calls, from women’s groups, from parent groups and from individuals who were shocked by the violence of the scene. Some of those conversations — including those with a representative from Safe Voices, a group that works with survivors of domestic violence — were productive, he said. Others were downright hostile, with callers threatening to sneak into the display and possibly destroy it. 

But such action won’t be necessary, Ricker said. After initially agreeing to modify the scene by covering most of the mannequin and enclosing the scene, he decided to remove the display altogether. 

“Much to the chagrin of some our staff,” Ricker said, “we’re caving.” 

On top of the removal of the display at the center of the flap, Ricker said they are going to also post warnings that the Nightmare on the Ridge may not be suitable for young children. A separate event, for the young kids, was already in the works, and will feature much tamer frights, Ricker said.  

The Nightmare on the Ridge event for the older crowd has for years featured depictions of hardcore violence, many of them in the tradition of movies like “Saw.” The sets are designed for people middle school age and up, Ricker said, but ultimately it’s up to parents whether they want their kids to walk through the course and witness the various scenes of gore and carnage. 

“We have mannequins all over the place that are being disemboweled, ground up in grinders and chopped up,” Ricker said. “Our sole purpose is for people to come and enjoy themselves; to get a kind of shock and to have fun with it.” 

He said the saw scene — which depicted a woman wearing only a bikini top and a blindfold as the saw blade grinds up between her legs — had never seemed to offend anybody in previous years, but he understood the unease about it and said that scene will be eliminated for good. 

Ricker himself is only loosely involved in the Nightmare on the Ridge event, he said. He’s not an artistic type so he turns over control of the event to set designers and the like.  

“They decide what kind of scares we’ll have, what changes we’re going to make and what the scenes are going to look like,” Ricker said.  

Modifications to the Nightmare on the Ridge set were underway Wednesday afternoon.

By the middle of the afternoon, three people had leveled their complaints about the display on the Wallingford’s Facebook page. One woman later said she was content with the decision made to remove the display and said has no further qualms against the business.

She said she had learned that the plan is to replace the offending display with something “that’s kind of 80s slasher, but not someone who’s being split by a chop saw.”

The woman, who did not want her name published, said she plans to visit the Nightmare on The Ridge attraction and that she will be glad when the scantily clad woman succumbing to the saw blade is no longer a part of it.

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