Earlier this year Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain. (The original version. Not the Disney one who wears a red shirt.) When a famous property becomes free for all to use, any and every project you can imagine becomes a possibility. Artists can make almost anything they want when copyrights are no longer an issue. I know all of that, and yet I was still unprepared for what entering the public domain would mean for the beloved bear. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are set to become slashers in Blood and Honey. And the only thing weirder than that sentence is what I’m about to write next: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey‘s newest trailers looks pretty damn good.
Remember when Ewan McGregor played an adult Christopher who reunites with his old little animal friends in the Hundred Acres Wood in the feel-good Christopher Robin? Yeah, Blood and Honey is the complete opposite Winnie the Pooh movie. In fact, it might be even more grotesque than the opposite of McGregor’s sweet film. Because this Blood and Honey trailer goes hard. Jason Vorhees hard.
In the Winnie the Pooh trailer, we see that Pooh and Piglet turned “wild” after their favorite human child abandoned them years earlier. When Christopher Robin returns as a grownup, he finds Pooh and Piglet have grown into giant monsters. And they’ve developed a taste for murder. What follows that discovery is a classic slasher flick. This movie even features young coeds imperiled during a getaway in the woods. We get to see even more of the action and blood in a recent special look.
There’s lots of blood, a little honey, and some genuinely creepy masks. But while this Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey horror movie trailer is equal parts funny (how can it not be?) and scary, there’s an underlying idea here that could make this movie so much better than just a gimmick. Blood and Honey could explore the dangers of revisiting the things we loved as kids and holding on to an idea of what they should be rather than dealing with what they are.
Yeah, I really did just make the case the Winnie the Pooh horror movie might have something meaningful to say about the pitfalls of modern fandom and nostalgia. Entering the public domain really does lead to some weird stuff. And, hey, if it’s trailer is anything to judge by, we can’t wait for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey to release in full. Catch it in theaters on February 15, 2023.
Originally published on August 31, 2022.