Amusement park Walibi Holland has withdrawn a commercial for its annual Fright Nights after widespread criticism of the video showing a woman being sold and then killed.

“The commercial has triggered a lot of reactions in the Netherlands,” Walibi said in a statement on Instagram. “We understand that the images may be sensitive in the current social context and regret that some people felt offended or uncomfortable.”

The park stressed the video was made as “an artistic interpretation entirely in the spirit of fiction, horror and exaggeration,” adding that its characters and scenarios were “caricatures, deliberately far removed from reality.”

Initially, Walibi said the film would only be taken offline temporarily. The video showed sinister characters bidding at an auction for a terrified woman in a glass cage. When the highest bid was made, she was dropped through a trapdoor into a shredder, with blood splattering against the glass as the audience laughed.

The imagery drew heavy criticism online with campaign group Women Inc. saying on social media that “Femicide is a national emergency, not a marketing trick.”The group has also reported the advert to the Dutch advertising standards authority.

Online anger increased after news broke last Thursday that a 17-year-old girl from Abcoude had been murdered while cycling home at night.

The theme park said it will launch a new campaign soon.