Winnie the Pooh reflects images of the lovable teddy bear and his companions, as immortalised in the stories by English author A. A. Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard. However, the first trailer of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey proves that the film is meant to be right out of the worst nightmares.
The horror film by director Rhys Waterfield has the same characters as in Milne’s stories, but they are set in a hellish world where Winnie (Craig David Dowsett) has turned into a bloodthirsty anthropomorphic bear with his best friend, Piglet (Chris Cordell). The movie release date has yet to be announced.
More about Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
Trailer shows a feral Winnie and Piglet
The trailer shows Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon), the human friend of Winnie and Piglet, return to 100 Acre Wood where he left them when he went to college. But to his horror, he discovers that his absence has turned the two feral.
Winnie and Piglet have already killed their other anthropomorphic friends, such as Eeyore, and are now staking and murdering humans.
In the trailer, five women are seen in a holiday home where they are attacked by the two creatures. Flashes show a heartbroken and scared Robin saying that he shouldn’t have left them alone.
Why is this Winnie not the same as the Disney version?
Milne’s work entered public domain in 2022, making it possible for anyone to interpret his stories in their styles. But Disney, which immortalised the story in the form of cartoons, still holds the copyright to some characters, their depictions and other elements created by the studio.
Variety reports that the makers, Waterfield and Jagged Edge Productions, changed certain elements in the film — replaced Winnie’s iconic red shirt and did not include “Winnie the Pooh” song written by the Sherman Brothers to avoid any issues with Disney. They also excluded the character of Tigger, who continues to remain under copyright.
Waterfield earlier told Variety that the film was shot near the Ashdown Forest in England over the course of 10 days.
“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,” Waterfield said. “And we wanted to go between the two.”
More details here.
(Main and Featured images: IMDb)
