Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Poster Complaints

A poster for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has drawn complaints for its depiction of a female child’s face.

Transport for London, which runs the tube and bus stations in the capital of England, confirmed to Metro that it had received an undisclosed number of complaints from commuters.

The Mummy, from Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin, has a number of advertisements running across London that depict eight-year-old Katie Cannon (played by Natalie Grace), who goes missing for eight years before returning as a mummy. The poster shows Grace as Cannon in mummified form, grey and gaunt.

Earlier this week, BBC journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed took to X / Twitter to say she had submitted a complaint to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the poster, saying: “Why is there so little consideration of the impact of such images on children? (And one might add, on bereaved parents).”

https://twitter.com/SamiraAhmedUK/status/2044411441596227635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The tweet went viral, securing over 2 million views. It received a mix of comments, with some agreeing with the complaint, others taking issue with it. Journalist Rebecca Reid echoed Ahmed’s sentiment, saying: “This absolutely terrified my three-year-old last week. No fast food, no women wearing sheer tights, but horror is fine?”

“It’s a photo-realistic image of a child corpse,” another person said. “If people can’t understand how that might be distressing, it says far more about their brain rot than anything else.”

TfL told Metro that all advertising that runs on its estate must comply with the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) code and the TfL Advertising Policy. Metro said that it expects the posters will be removed soon as the advertising campaign comes to an end, given The Mummy is now out.

The ASA confirmed it had received complaints asking if the ads were unsuitable for children and, according to Metro, those complaints are being looked at to see if an investigation should be launched. The ASA’s rules dictate that adverts “must not cause fear or distress without justifiable reason; if it can be justified, the fear or distress should not be excessive. Marketers should not use a shocking claim or image merely to attract attention.”

IGN’s Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Review returned a 7/10. We said: “As ugly as it is amusing, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy takes the kind of tonal swings you rarely see from a Hollywood studio.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.