Winnie-the-Pooh's gory makeover: Joke without a punchline

What happens when an intellectual property enters the public domain? A silly, honey-loving old bear can turn into a monster. 

Although Disney's version of Pooh is protected by copyright, the company no longer holds any exclusive right to the character when it entered the public domain in January last year. And Guess what happened? Rhys Frake-Waterfield turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

The beloved children's stories, created by British Author AA Milne and Illustrator EH Shepard, have been turned into a slasher movie, 'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey'. 

Joke without a punchline

The gripping and gritty reimagining of the innocent characters was produced, written, and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. The film is a jarring departure from the whimsical and lighthearted adventures of Pooh and his friends. 

We are presented with a bleak and unforgiving world where Pooh and Piglet are all people-hating, monstrous creatures. How or why did they turn out this way? Not a single clue, the plot never unfolds for the audience. 

This dark and violent adaptation starts with a poorly animated explanation of the events that occurred on Hundred Acre Wood after Pooh's best friend Christopher Robin abandoned his friends and left for college. Unable to fend for themselves, Pooh and his friends kill their friend Eeyore (that grey, gloomy, adorable donkey, if you remember?) and feed on him. This visual experience should be enough to ruin one's childhood memories. Being feral and bloodthirsty, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet terrorise Christopher Robin and his wife Mary when they return to the town. 

Pooh can manipulate bees for whatever reason, and we occasionally get to see him drooling over honey. Other than the characters' names, the movie makes no use of recognised material from the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories. 

The movie also never addresses why 'human-sized' Pooh and Piglet hover around in cheap Halloween masks and cause menace to people, which makes it even weirder for the audience. If they were presented as stuffed animals terrorising humans and feeding on human flesh, it would have left some room for imagination and horror rather than torment. 

The script appears to be nothing short of a joke, but it lacks a punchline.

Production disaster

In transforming children's characters into horrific creatures, the filmmaker's effort can barely be applauded. The screenplay is weak, there's no development of the one-dimensional characters, and no attempt to flesh out the lore. 

The motivations of the characters are illogical. The director seemed to put no effort into the plot, this explains how they finished filming within ten days or so. To make matters worse, the production is lousy from start to finish. 

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is surely an unexpected, but thrilling, journey that will leave you both disturbed and oddly moved. If you want to give it a shot, grab some popcorn (skip the honey for your own good) and buckle up. Once you are on the ride, there's no turning back!