The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a poster for Lee Cronin's The Mummy film from the London Underground after parents complained it could frighten children. The poster, which shows a mummified child with one eye swollen shut, drew 30 complaints.
Poster details and complaints
The poster, seen on the London Underground, depicted the body of a mummified child wrapped in brown paper with one eye swollen shut. The ad included the text: “Some things are meant to stay buried. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.”
TV and live streaming service ads showed fleeting scenes of a body being removed from a sarcophagus and a woman looking distressed as a greying hand with long brittle nails brushed her cheek, ending with the mother saying: “I just want my daughter back.”
Warner Bros' response
Warner Bros said the poster ads had been prepared with “due responsibility to consumers and society” and were not designed to create fear or distress. They argued the character was a “living mummy” who was returned to her parents as a teenager or young adult, and that the posters used a neutral expression to reduce distress. They added that the posters had been submitted to TfL’s advertising partner, Global, and had been accepted for display.
The trailer, they said, was designed so that horror themes were implied rather than shown explicitly, with no jump scares, violence, or gore.
ASA ruling
Upholding complaints about the posters, the ASA said the grey and ashen appearance, dry and cracked lips, one eye swollen shut and the other fixed and vacant, gave a realistic impression of a dead child. It added: “Because the figure had recognisable human features, we considered that viewers were likely to understand it as a realistic depiction of a dead child.”
The ASA noted that while Warner Bros said the ads were not placed within 100 metres of any schools, the ad was visible from a children’s nursery. It concluded: “We considered the image was likely to distress young children and that it was unsuitable for display where it was likely to be seen by them.”
Other complaints
The ASA did not uphold complaints about a TV ad and two posters for another Warner Bros film, They Will Kill You. Some 20 complainants argued those ads glamorised violence and knife crime, but the ASA found the imagery was highly stylised and reflected the film's fictional nature, and that the post-7.30pm scheduling restriction for the TV ad was sufficient.
