Almost anything gets a horror treatment these days. And unfortunately, the next in line happens to be the beloved children’s book character Winnie The Pooh. After A.A. Milne’s 1926 original stories about the tubby little cubby fell into the public domain almost half a year ago, some UK filmmakers got a bad idea. The result? “Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey,” Winnie and Piglet’s first slasher movie.
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The film wrapped its ten-day shoot earlier this month in England, not far from Ashdown Forest, the inspiration for Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood in the stories. The premise sounds abysmal: after a college-bound Christopher Robin abandons bear and pig, Winnie and Piglet go feral, kill Eeyore, and go on a murderous rampage. In other words, this sounds like something the world doesn’t need.
Rhys Waterfield, who directs, writes, and co-produces “Blood And Honey” through his Jagged Edge Productions, told Variety that audiences “shouldn’t be expecting this to be a Hollywood-level production.” No surprise there. “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,” Waterfield continued, “and it’s just really ridiculous and really, like, stupid. And we wanted to go between the two.” Considering Waterfield has four other films in post-production, including ones titled “Firenado” and “Demonic Christmas Tree,” straddling the line between wacky and stupid might be his forté.
So, what does Disney have to say about all of this? Nothing yet, as Milne’s earliest stories are now all out of copyright, but that still puts limits on Waterfield’s horror adaptation. For example, there’s no Tigger in “Blood And Honey,” and Pooh Bear won’t wear his red t-shirt, as that’s a signature of Disney’s rendition of the character. “We’ve tried to be extremely careful,” said Waterfield. “We knew there was this line between that, and we knew what their copyright was and what they’ve done. So we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 version of it.”
Even so, expect “Blood And Honey” to incite minor controversy in the UK, where Milne’s characters remain darling figures. The first still from the movie shows a fiendish Pooh and Piglet leering behind a girl lounging in a hot tub, ready to pounce. That’s a far cry from any children’s version of the characters, sure, but also a long ways from a decent movie premise. Maybe Waterfield proves us wrong? Doubtful.