Oh boy, is this ten years too late.
Imagine, if you will, Winnie the Pooh. But it’s not the Winnie you probably remember. This Winnie has horrifying eyes, and speaks to you of horrors the likes of which simply don’t happen in the Hundred Acre Woods. I am of course referring to the PSA from Pooh’s Corner.
That said, there’s apparently an actual horror film featuring that silly old bear, and no, Disney’s not involved. Titled Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, it features a Winnie the Pooh and Piglet that ate Eeyore and are going on a murderous rampage because Christopher Robin didn’t return to the Hundred Acre Wood.
As for why the filmmakers are able to do this, well, A. A. Milne’s original 1926 book just passed into the public domain around the beginning of this year. This means that any character featured in that book is now fair game – – provided you don’t step on Disney’s copyrighted versions. It also means that associated characters that didn’t appear until the followup book, The House at Pooh Corner, like Tigger, won’t be public domain for another two years.
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield explains the whole process in an interview with Variety:
According to Waterfield, who also wrote and co-produced the film, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” will see Pooh and Piglet as “the main villains…going on a rampage” after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin. “Christopher Robin is pulled away from them, and he’s not [given] them food, it’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult.”
“Because they’ve had to fend for themselves so much, they’ve essentially become feral,” Waterfield continued. “So they’ve gone back to their animal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.”
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Given the premise, the biggest challenge, Waterfield said, was balancing the line between horror and comedy. “When you try and do a film like this, and it’s a really wacky concept, it’s very easy to go down a route where nothing is scary and it’s just really ridiculous and really, like, stupid. And we wanted to go between the two.”
As an example, Waterfield explained the set-up behind the still (above) of a girl relaxing in a jacuzzi with Pooh and Piglet ominously standing nearby. “She’s having a good time and then Pooh and Piglet appear behind her, chloroform her, take her out of the jacuzzi and then kind of drive a car over her head,” Waterfield said. “It’s scary but there’s also funny bits because there’s shots of Winnie the Pooh in a car and seeing him with his little ears behind the wheel and like slowly going over there [to kill her.]”
Variety
Great pains are taken to avoid Disney’s copyrighted versions of these characters, for obvious reasons. And they’re accomplishing that aim by making extra sure to that the characters are based entirely off of the book.
At the end of the day, however, Waterfield points out that this movie doesn’t have a massive Hollywood budget, so horror fans should temper their expectations.
“No one is going to mistake this [for Disney],” Waterfield said. “When you see the cover for this and you see the trailers and the stills and all that, there’s no way anyone is going to think this is a child’s version of it.”
Waterfield is both the writer and director for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Source: IGN
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