--- title: "Town’s Huge Christmas Mural Was Generated Using AI, Resulting in Ghastly Chthonic Horrors" description: "An enormous new mural near London, depicting a crowded Christmas scene, has drawn outrage and mockery from passersby." date: "2025-11-18" modified: "2025-11-18" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/christmas-mural-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" --- # Town’s Huge Christmas Mural Was Generated Using AI, Resulting in Ghastly Chthonic Horrors ![An enormous new mural near London, depicting a crowded Christmas scene, has drawn outrage and mockery from passersby.]() *EpsteinDidntKil via Reddit* An enormous new mural near London, depicting a crowded Christmas scene, has drawn outrage and mockery from passersby. The issue is that the mural, which is prominently displayed above the Côte Brasserie restaurant on Kingston upon Thames' Riverside Walk, a popular stretch lined with local businesses, appears to have been hastily generated by an AI, resulting in horridly disfigured people, animals — and even a snowman. "This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu," [joked journalist Matt Thrower]() on Bluesky. "It looks like a refugee camp/Christmas market mashup. I guess the prompt was 'Reform Christmas nightmare,'" one user [wrote](). "They didn't stop the boats... or the mutant dogs and two-headed snowmen." There appears to be a [second mural]() as well, which also bears the hallmarks of having been AI-generated. "Had to go see this for myself, and oh my gods is it worse than I expected," software developer Stephen Oakman wrote in a [post](). "There’s another one of them as well that is even worse than this one just next to it." Closeups show human faces distorted beyond recognition, sprouting extra appendages. The bodies of what appear to be dogs horrifically merge with human figures. Happy holidays indeed. https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1ozk1jl/scenes_of_lovecraftian_horror_at_kingstons/ It's a sign that even holiday decorations are no longer safe from a [tidal wave of AI slop]() — and out-of-date slop, at that: modern image generators have [made great strides]() in coherence and ensuring human figures have the correct number of fingers, leaving us wondering whether the mural was generated with ancient tools. It remains unclear who is behind the shoddy artwork. A source familiar with the situation said the decoration had been put up by the landlord, not Côte Brasserie or the Bill's Kingston Restaurant. *Futurism* has also reached out to the local municipality for clarification. One thing's for sure: the public may be amused, but it's unimpressed. One user on the London subreddit [described]() "scenes of Lovecraftian horror." "What in the AI is going on here and just HOW did this carnage get approved," they wrote. "This abomination is also about 100 feet wide!" "So they didn’t even look at it once before printing it," one user [commented](). "You know what's Christmassy?" another user [joked](). "A snowman with a f\*\*\*ing eye on his cheek." "I for one welcome our new Ai Robot Cthulhu overlord," one Bluesky user [wrote](). "Utter AI slop." **More on AI slop:** [*Over 50 Percent of the Internet Is Now AI Slop, New Data Finds*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()