If the phrases 'Winnie-The-Pooh' and 'horror movie' were two things that you'd only previously imagined possibly coming together in some kind of weird, drunken evening spent with in with a pack of Card Against Humanity, we've got some troubling news to share with you.
The original Winnie-The-Pooh IP, first introduced to the world in English author A.A. Milne's collection of stories published in 1926, officially lapsed into the public domain this year, meaning anyone could pretty much do anything they want with it. And someone has already conjured up something decidedly off-brand.
Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey, a new horror slasher written and directed by Rhys Waterfield and produced by Jagged Edge Productions, has just wrapped filming and is expected to be released later this year.
“No one is going to mistake this [for Disney],” Waterfield tells Variety. “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.”
With a plot detailing how Pooh and his best pal Piglet have gone "feral" and caused all kinds of mayhem after being abandoned by Christopher Robin, the film still has to tread carefully to not infringe on the versions of the Pooh characters still owned by Disney, and Waterfield has made a point of stressing that "fans shouldn’t be expecting this to be a Hollywood-level production." It hasn't stopped the first images from the film going viral, though, making Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey the most talked-about B-movie horror of 2022 so far.
Filmed over 10 days in the UK, the film is now being finished "as fast as we can" according to Wakefield, with an official release date yet to be confirmed. Watch out for a trailer no doubt dropping sometime soon, and check out a couple more images from the film below. Oh, bother...
