Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honeymay be inspired by popular children’s characters, but its title already makes it clear that there will be nothing cute about its content. However, it seems that it was not enough to alert a fourth-grade teacher, who screened the movie for her entire class, as recently reported.
Released in January 2023, Rhys Waterfield’s film was one of the big surprises of the year. Following the expiration of the copyright protection on the original Winnie the Pooh story, the characters of Pooh, Piglet and Christopher Robin fell into the public domain, making them fair game for any new adaptations. This paved the way for Waterfield to give the Hundred Acre Wood a very different and dark look to that everyone has become accustomed to. The plot focuses on Winnie and Piglet, who after being abandoned by Christopher Robin, whogo wild and seek revenge, unleashing a bloodbath on anyone they come across.
The film was slammed as one of the worst movies of the year by critics, but due to its super-low budget became a big financial success. Gore fans fell in love with the extreme violence and unpleasant scenes, as well as its twisted plot. In fact, such was the success of the movie, that it has already confirmed its sequel. However, it also had a negative impact on a group of fourth graders, who were accidentally shown the film thinking it was a classic story starring Winnie the Pooh.
In an interview withVarietyto talk about the second part of the franchise, Rhys Waterfield responded to the news about the unexpected event, incredulous that anyone could think it was a children’s film:
“It’s mad, isn’t it? I think it’s crazy. Because when you watch the film there is no way you may mistake it for a child’s film, literally in the first 10 minutes, crazy stuff’s happening. And [the characters] look scary. So I don’t know how — because they said it went on 20 to 30 minutes — I don’t know how it went on that long. I don’t know if the teacher put it on and just walked out and left them or if the kids tricked them or something. Hopefully we haven’t ruined these kids’ childhoods.”
Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 Sets Release Date, Will Be in Theaters Just 3 Days
Upcoming horror sequel Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 will be in theaters March 26 through 28.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Sequel Will Be Even Gorier
The silver lining, if there really is one, is that the children saw the original film and not the sequel, which seems destined to be much bloodier and nastier than its predecessor. Or at least that’s what Waterfield teases:
“In comparison to the first film everything’s stepped up massively. It’s a horror film. A lot of the times people are going there for the death scenes and for those elements and we’ve really upped the ante. I think the last time I did a count there was over 30 deaths in the movie, which is quite substantial compared to most movies. I think that’s at least over three times what the first film had and there’s various massacres and stuff. So there’s a lot of blood and a lot of gore.”
The famous bear is not the only character popularized by Disney has popularized that has decided to move into the world of horror.Beloved fairytales likeCinderellaandSleeping Beautyare also developing their horror versions after the great success ofWinnie the Pooh: Blood and HoneyandThe Mean One, a slasher inspired byThe Grinch.
