This Dad Is Using His Twin Girls to Freak Out Hotel Guests, ‘The Shining’ Style

Martin Hughes installed a hotel prank that would make Stanley Kubrick proud. The English father has pranked hotel guests by having his identical twin daughters mimic the demonic twins from The Shining.

Love making my girls do this in hotels to shit people up, makes the grief of having twins worthwhile. pic.twitter.com/n4spPDHX96

— Wefail (@wefail) March 9, 2017

“As soon as we found out we were having identical twins I thought The Shining. As they’ve gotten older and we can travel and stay in hotels, it was a given that I’d get them to stand holding hands in the hallway for a joke,” Hughes told Buzzfeed News. “They’re too young to leave there to spook people directly but when we’ve had them do the pose then stood back and someone’s turned the corner they’ve gasped and gone a little green — ‘Oh god!’”

Martin Hughes’ spooky March 9 tweet quickly took on a life of its own. As of March 16, the missive garnered nearly 20,000 likes and 6,500 retweets. In addition, the tweet attracted hundreds of replies from mostly bemused social media users.

@wefail @naeshitsherlock now that is parenting done so freeking right…

— Victoria (@itzmevictoria) March 10, 2017

@wefail I would never tire of doing that if I had twin girls! My friend and I tried our best for Halloween at work ? pic.twitter.com/lvl0RRdkqV

— Rohan Dunlop (@RohanDunlop) March 9, 2017

However, the tweet received some negative comments as well.

@wefail Alright so when I stomp them you’ll be silent.I don’t play that bull this isn’t a horror movie. Try that on me they will get stomped

— gσd вlєѕѕ thє mєѕѕ (@Cappuccino16_) March 12, 2017

@wefail this is disgusting and when someone hurts your girls trying to defend themselves you can’t say shit

— chocolate milk (@brownnoorlando) March 13, 2017

What does Martin Hughes think about the feedback from the tweet?

“The feedback’s been great on the whole, it was only posted as a joke to my followers but went viral and then made quite a few newspapers,” Martin Hughes told Your Daily Dish. “Most people laughed about it, but as is the case with anything on Twitter, you get some terrible trolls jump on board to give you some pretty awful replies. The block button comes in handy. Some of the comments focus on the word ‘grief’ too, but in the U.K. and in the context of the tweet it means ‘hard work’ and twins are indeed hard work, unless you like getting two hours sleep a night for three years.”

Despite the negatives, Hughes says the experience overall has been a good one, adding, “It’s been positive overall though, people saying they want twins just so they can pull the prank, or parents of twins getting in touch to say they’re going to do it. If you have twin girls you really do have to pull The Shining pose at some point. Even had triplet parents get in touch, I can’t even imagine how much sleep those people get.”

Our thanks to Martin Hughes for speaking to us.