Sean Parker
To Rhys Waterfield, the lunatic who said, “let’s make Winnie the Pooh a homicidal serial killer,” you’re demented, and I like that. I don’t know how long you’ve been waiting to turn a “willy nilly silly old bear” into a “tubby little cubby all covered in blood,” but I’m happy to see this outlandish idea getting the attention it deserves. The first Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer has dropped, and we all can’t wait to see this ax-wielding psychopath go on a murderous rampage through our childhood nostalgia.
Earlier this year, A.A. Milne’s classic stories about a boy’s imaginative playland in the woods near his house entered the public domain and made the rights to the concepts public. In May, the loveable teddy bear with an obsession for honey was said to have gone feral as the production of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was wrapping. In a storyline where a grown-up Christopher Robin returns to that spot deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, where Eyeore has been buried, leaving Pooh out for more than just a pot of honey.
The Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer looks like the anti-Toy Story. Where the latter fills its sequels with what happens to the toys as their child playmate grows up, the former has kept that character small, not understanding that animals left in the woods will revert to their primal hunting instincts. As the trailer shows Christopher Robin’s abandonment of these once beloved characters, it does not appear Pooh and Piglet share a warm sentiment in once again seeing their old pal. It gets even darker as Pooh and Piglet set their eyes on a nearby house of girls on vacation and go full slasher-mode rampage on its inhabitants.
The internet has gone bonkers since this indie horror film was announced. However, I think it’s worth noting that indie distributor ITN Studios releases nearly a hundred titles yearly. Many of its recent horror titles, like Clownery, Mummy Resurgence, Blood Pi, American Cannibal, and Amityville Witches, are all currently available to stream on Tubi. Jagged Edge Productions is very similar, as a massive B-film company with over a dozen titles made in 2021. So, anyone thinking they’re getting a studio-style production will probably need to dial it back a bit. Besides Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, Rhys Waterfield also has a slew of B-movies releasing this year, including Demonic Christmas Tree, Firenado, and Sky Monster. If people are looking for more classic children’s tales turned into nightmares, they will be happy to know he’s currently filming Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, which will likely be out in 2023.
That isn’t to say Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey won’t be a good time, specifically for the B-movie deep-divers like myself who know exactly what to expect. If the filmmakers have gone all-in on the premise, which judging from the trailer, it looks like they have, we could be in for a deranged bit of ridiculous fun. The Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer, which has already racked up millions of views across multiple YouTube channels, definitely looks like it could be the B-movie event of the year, and, like many of you, I’m on pins and needles with anticipation.
Fans of excellent film scores should also check out Andrew Scott Bell’s Instagram page. The Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey composer has been showing off some impressive clips of what to expect from the film’s music, including a beehiveolin. The violin used in the score has a different, darker resonance than a standard violin due to the sound of the massive honeycomb inside it. The beehiveolin may sound gimmicky, but in Bell’s comparison of unaltered violin sounds to the unique frequency of the beehiveolin, I’m ready for a severe ominousness that shrouds a once beloved fable into a pulse-pounding nightmare.
The release of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is still TBD, but we assume the wait won’t be much longer.
