Winnie the Pooh always craved honey, but now he’s bloodthirsty.
Or at least that’s the premise of the upcoming slasher movie “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.”
The first movie trailer gave up on Wednesday morning and showed the dumb bear a deadly new side. The plot centers on Winnie (Craig David Dowsett) and his pal Piglet (Chris Cordell) as they seek revenge on their old friend Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) for abandoning them after enrolling in college.
After years of separation from their favorite human, the two once-cuddly Buds have turned against humanity and will stop at nothing to reunite and kill Christopher, leaving a trail of bodies along the way.
The preview for the film directed by Rhys Waterfield shows a soon-to-be-married Christopher returning to his hometown with his fiancée to introduce her to his pals in the Hundred Acre Wood. Instead, they arrive at a grisly, desolate scene and immediately notice something is wrong. The rest of the trailer is a montage of Winnie and Piglet killing youngsters.
Not traumatic at all for fans of Winnie-the-Pooh and his many friends.
But how is this movie even possible? How could Disney allow the little cubby tubby opposed to the pants to be portrayed in this way?
Well, it’s not.
Beginning that year, the characters in AA Milne’s 1926 book “Winnie-the-Pooh” were freed from copyright restrictions and entered the public domain. This means that anyone can use the characters’ likeness without facing legal action. It’s important to note that this only applies to the characters as they were originally rendered in Milne’s book and not the Disney cartoon character wearing a red crop top, which is still very protected by copyright.
In an interview with Variety in May, when the first pictures from the set came out, Waterfield said the film capitalized on his online buzz of the absurdity of a Winnie-the-Pooh horror movie.
In “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” the beloved bear is cast as a murderer out for revenge on his old friend, Christopher Robin.
(Jagged Edge Productions and ITN)
“Because of all the press and stuff, we’re just going to start ramping up the edit and getting it into post-production as fast as we can,” Waterfield said. “But also, making sure it’s always good. This will be a high priority.
He also noted that the film was shot in 10 days in England, near Ashdown Forest, the actual inspiration for Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood.
Waterfield made it clear that his take on the characters would have nothing to do with Disney’s.
“No one will be mistaken [for Disney]”, Waterfield said. “When you see the cover of this and you see the trailers and the stills and all that, there’s no way anyone will think this is a kid’s version. .”
Predictably, netizens had their thoughts on the gory trailer.
“‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ seems like the worst movie ever made,” tweeted @laneymakesstuff. “That said, I plan to pre-order tickets and be there on premiere night.”
@HalloweenYrRnd wrote, “No matter how this movie turns out, I love that as soon as Winnie the Pooh hits the public domain, it’s the first new movie we get!”
@AhmedBaba_also loved how ridiculous the film was, writing, “The fact that the second Winnie the Pooh became usable in the public domain someone thought ‘let’s do it and piglet some murderous monsters’ is hilarious .”
Others were less excited about Winnie’s new twist.
“Okay I get it now, it’s a low budget generic horror with no real identity EXCEPT it uses Winnie the Pooh in an effort to increase social media clicks, right?” wrote @NoahIsAHuman.
@TheConnorRentz refused to think about the trailer and redirected fans of the bear to another take on it, writing, “either way christopher robin is the only winnie the pooh live action movie we’ll get never need it, it is perfect and no further interpretation is required.”
Scott Wampler of horror-based publication Fangoria captured the energy of the whole situation, Tweeter: “Hello. S— is already weird.
