New key art has been released for the upcoming horror flick Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and it's a far cry from how the character has long been envisioned by Disney. The poster includes the tagline, "This ain't no bedtime story," and features a freaky Pooh Bear front and center holding a bloodied hammer. The key art, originally debuted at Dread Central, also features another image of Pooh in the woods with a knife in hand with a corpse at his feet, having just taken another victim.
Traditionally, Winnie the Pooh has been depicted as a friendly, honey-loving bear who loves nothing more than spending time with Christopher Robin and his other animal pals. That's always been the way Disney has presented the character over the decades throughout its various Winnie the Pooh stories in different mediums. The character was originally created by author A. A. Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard in 1924, though Disney has held the rights to Pooh since 1961. It went into the public domain earlier this year, allowing for filmmakers to now legally use Pooh Bear for horror movies if they so desire.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. It stars Craig David Dowsett as Winnie-the-Pooh and Chris Cordell as Piglet with other cast members including Amber Doig-Thorne, Maria Taylor, Danielle Ronald, Natasha Tosini, May Kelly, Paula Coiz, and Natasha Rose Mills.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Puts Pooh and Piglet on a Rampage
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey picks up with a grown-up Christopher Robin after abandoning Pooh Bear and Piglet many years prior. Because the neglected animals had become "increasingly hungry and feral," which even resulted in eating Eeyore to survive, they have become much more murderous and bloodthirsty than they had been when Christopher Robin was still their pal. They also have not forgotten being left behind, as when Christopher returns to his hometown, he triggers Pooh Bear and Piglet to go on a vicious rampage, targeting a rural cabin occupied by a group of university girls.
"Pooh and Piglet, they don’t have any remorse, and they’re actually pretty sadistic," writer-director Rhys Frake-Waterfield told Dread Central. "That was something I wanted from the characters. It’s always been just Pooh and Piglet. I’ve imagined, and got the actors, to portray that Pooh as the alpha of the two. So he’s the alpha male over Piglet, and he is always the one in charge of the camp. Piglet essentially is almost a little minion to him, and Piglet just does whatever Pooh wants. And they’ve built up this over the years. They’ve built up these really sadistic tendencies amongst themselves. So they used to just go out and just target people to kill them, to eat them as a way of living … just food basically."
As of now, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey does not yet have an official release date. In June, Frake-Waterfied said that he was currently working hard on getting an official trailer out soon, and hopefully release date information won't be too far off. You can take a gander at the new poster for the film below.
