(NEXSTAR) – Oh, bother – Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, loveable characters many of us grew up with, are about to undergo an alarming twist.
A new horror film, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” is taking the internet by storm. While few details are available about it, the film’s IMDb page calls it “a horror retelling of the famous legend of Winnie-The-Pooh.”
“The film ‘Wrong Turn’ was a big inspiration for me,” writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield tells Nexstar. “Wrong Turn” follows a group of friends hiking the Appalachian Trail who encounter a community that has been living in the mountains for years, according to IMDb.
“I then decided to pick a concept which isn’t just a generic werewolf, zombie, ghost,” Frake-Waterfield explained. “I went with Winnie because it’s so bizarre and has so much potential to be creative and include some fun horror moments. For example, Piglet in this story keeps someone chained up at all times in their den, because he likes to have someone to ‘maul’ whenever he desires. The two eat out [of] a giant honey pot and massive [trough]. They are really fun to put in situations. They enjoy making other people suffer and, if hungry, they eat them.”
How did these two adorable characters become something out of your nightmares? A lack of care from Christopher Robin, according to Frake-Waterfield, caused them to become “increasingly hungry and feral.”
“Eventually they had to eat Eeyore to survive. Christopher returns and discovered his old feral friends are no longer what they seem. Upon seeing Christopher, Pooh and Piglet go on a rampage and eventually target a rural cabin, where a group of girls from university are staying.”
The film was shot near the original inspiration for the Hundred Acre Woods – Ashdown Forest in East Sussex – and produced by Jagged Edge Productions, which Frake-Waterfield runs with co-producer Scott Jeffrey.
While still images from the film have been released – you can see them in the slideshow below – a trailer won’t be released for about three months, according to Frake-Waterfield. The film itself is expected to be released in the final months of 2022. Where the film will be available for viewing hasn’t yet been determined, Frake-Waterfield says.
A.A. Milne’s original stories of Winnie-the-Pooh, first published in 1926, became public domain earlier this year. This means anyone can create any adaptation without getting permission from Disney. There are exceptions, like the character Tigger, that remain under copyright because they were added after 1926.
Disney hasn’t yet expressed any concerns about the film, Frake-Waterfield tells Nexstar.
KXAN’s Billy Gates contributed to this report.