Oh, bother: the Winnie the Pooh slasher movie is a bloody mess
In the new film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, AA Milne’s beloved storybook bear embarks upon a murderous rampage, driven to homicidal madness by Christopher Robin’s abandonment for adulthood.
As explained by a prologue in crude stick-figure animation, a cold winter in the Hundred Acre Wood left Pooh and the rest of the gang with no choice but to cannibalize melancholic donkey Eeyore for survival, which marked a nightmarish surrender of all civility for a return to their basest beastly natures. A warped Pooh and Piglet, the latter wielding the savage force of 30 to 50 feral hogs, loose their unslakable hunger for carnage on a cadre of young hotties unaware that their weekend getaway to the woods is about to uphold horror-movie tradition in grisly fashion. As a buxom influencer snaps a series of bikini selfies in the cabin’s hot tub, Piglet creeps up behind her with a chloroform rag, then Pooh drives a car directly over the incapacitated woman’s skull until the pressure makes her eyeball pop out. Oh, bother!
If you assumed that it would be a blustery day in hell before Disney allowed this to happen to one of their IP superstars, you’d be right. On 1 January 2022, the content of Milne’s first story about the menagerie of philosophically inclined imaginary friends entered the public domain and legally threw open the reinterpretive floodgates. Artists far and wide could suddenly do whatever they pleased with or to Pooh, and director Rhys FrakeWaterfield wasted no time in lunging for the lowest-hanging fruit. He aims to scandalize with his intentional desecration of a kiddie icon, his stated goal nothing less than to “ruin everyone’s childhood”. But his feature debut, seemingly produced for $38 and improbably breaking into multiplexes with an assist from Fathom Events, illustrates the pitfalls and limitations along with the irreverent potential of the free-usesploitation cinema sure to proliferate as more brand-name characters are freed from their contractual shackles.
Pooh belongs to the people now, though Blood and Honey can’t help raising the ontological question of how much alteration his image can sustain before he’s stripped of his essential Pooh-ness. While the 1926 short story collection Winnie the Pooh may be up for grabs, Disney’s representation of him will remain under copyrighted lock and key for nearly 40 more years, which mandated Frake-Waterfield distinguish his work from the genuine article clearly enough that no one could confuse them.
That means no catchphrases, no red-shirt-sans-pants ensemble, no head stuck in the pot labeled HUNNY while his legs wiggle helplessly behind him. Pooh has been made over by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, now a hulking, silent humanoid in a dirty pair of overalls and lumberjack flannel. If not for the constant mentions by name, the film would be a bog-standard chop-’emup cheapie in which the killer happens to be wearing a Pooh mask from under which his human mouth and eyes are both visible.
It’s a ramshackle, dashed-off operation with little to recommend it as cinema, but judging by the shrieks of delight and robust round of applause at the opening night screening in New York’s Regal Union Square theater, there’s a market for that. And the makers of Blood and Honey apparently know it too, the brazen anti-resolution of the non-ending – never a good sign when someone in the back yells “THAT WAS IT?!” – cuing up a title card that teases a sequel in the works. This green light is a declaration of hubris, and yet it’s already been vindicated by a nearly million-dollar take on opening night, schlock enthusiasts having smelled blood in the water and turned out in droves for a feeding frenzy.
As the public domain window advances to cover more and more of the 20th century, viewers can expect a cottage industry to spring up around intellectual properties with opened access, one step up from the no-budget knockoffs of The Asylum. While the titles to come won’t enjoy the novelty factor of Pooh’s rushed-to-release slaughter spree (confirmed films include R-rated takes on Bambi and Peter Pan), they will have an advantage in not needing to tiptoe around the most wellknown version of the concept. Specific trademarks could still complicate matters, however; Mickey Mouse, for example, enters the public domain at the beginning of next year. But any enterprising deviant seeking to depict the fan-favorite rodent in flagrante delicto with Dracula cannot include any elements of appearance introduced after 1928’s short Steamboat Willie.
All of this is to say that even when purloining someone else’s idea to make a quick-and-dirty buck, expertise and effort make a difference. (Any trash connoisseur will tell you that it’s a fine line between so-bad-it’s-good and just bad.) It’s a primal human impulse to corrupt our totems of juvenile innocence, a natural part of shedding the naiveté of youth for the obscenity of the grown-up world. But from Tijuana bibles getting pin-up girl Betty Boop fully nude to the stage play Dog Sees God, in which Charlie Brown and his pals have aged into broken, dysfunctional teens, the most successful perversions have drawn on the unique qualities that made their fictitious stars popular in the first place.
If a person is going to do a mur
derous Pooh movie, the least they owe to their audience is a passable simulacrum of Pooh, imbued with an identifiably Pooh-like essence. Creative license lies at the heart of the argument in favor of public domain, the notion that concepts shouldn’t be offlimits to artists looking to engage with them. Anything short of that is just slapping a proper noun on generic chaff as a shortcut to distinction, an act of lazy greed that would deserve any litigation coming to it. And in the end, isn’t making ordinary citizens side with Disney’s legal department far more offensive than foisting unforgivable atrocities on literature’s cuddliest bear?
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is now out in US cinemas and will be released in the UK in April
to work for the NHS. It’s easy to forget the people who do are human. They are fragile, exhausted and have private lives, but we conveniently forget that. I so wish we would fund it properly, but I don’t know what we have to do to make the government wake up.
How did you get into acting and what is your favourite of the films you have made? Disneylover12345I got into acting when I was a child. I always loved dressing up and that didn’t ever stop. I got into it more seriously as a teenager when my dad took me to a youth theatre, near to where we lived. It was run by a very brilliant man, who treated us like adults. We did lots of amazing, experimental and weird productions. I fell in love and I realised maybe it could be my life. And the favourite film I’ve been in is Paddington 2, because it’s so popular.
I saw Women Talking last year and it was my favourite film of the year. What was your experience on set with a predominantly female cast? What was distinct about Sarah Polley’s directorial style? sophiarubinoIt was wonderful to work with that group of people. They were all great fun, no egos, and we were an ensemble, which is rare on a film set. Normally, you go back to your trailer, but we spent every day in a big room together. Sarah says it was happenstance, but I think it was intentional. She is sensitive and aware; she doesn’t want friction or stress. She listens, asks questions and watches everything like a hawk.
What animal did you study at drama school? Please say it was a bear! WeirdDugA horse. I spent hours watching this horse in a field in my village and fell in love with it. Most people at drama school hated the exercise, but I loved it.
Which Hugh Grant would you rather fight again? The one from A Very English Scandal or the one from Paddington 2? djshugggThe Hugh in English Scandal is very complex, so definitely the Hugh in Paddington 2. His musical sequence at the end is so great. Maybe we could meet again in a musical. I’m surprised no one has done Bridget Jones: The Musical. Surely that must be in the works?
I heard you sing in Mojo at the Harold Pinter theatre in 2013. Your voice is rich and melodic – I was stunned! Do you secretly yearn to take a big musical lead?ard1970I could only sing as that character, for some reason. I really can’t sing. I wish I could. I see other actors who are amazing singers, but I’m not, sadly. That character somehow gave me access to a voice I don’t actually have.
I was a close friend of your school drama teacher, Nessa Brown. She was so proud of you and now I’m proud on her behalf. What are your memories of her? JaneCQThat’s a lovely question. Vanessa was a very special person, for lots of reasons. She was astoundingly honest; brutally honest, at times. I was 16 and we were doing a play. Halfway through the rehearsal, she said: “Oh, stop acting!” She wasn’t frightened to push you, but it was always with love and intelligence. She was a real rebel spirit. We kept in regular contact. I really miss her.
If Paddingtonwere promoted to Q, what gadgets would he invent for James Bond? TopTramp and croddOh God, I hate these kinds of questions because I’m not a gadget person. A bulletproof duffel coat and exploding marmalade sandwiches sounds about right!
I saw your Brutus at the Bridge theatre. You were magnetic and lucid; a privilege to watch. As Richard II, your deposition speech took my breath away. What is the key to Shakespeare? Will you return to the theatre? Which Shakespeare would you do next? Hermione, KeepRunning, aquietanon and JustsitThe key to Shakespeare is not to be afraid of it. What made Shakespeare revolutionary is that he allowed real rhythms of speech to come through within the iambic pentameter. Characters in Hamlet forget what they are saying, or change their minds, just like real people. It should sound as natural as someone chatting to you. It’s poetry, but natural and everyday. I’m not planning to do any more stage work. I don’t think there are any more Shakespeares I’d be good at, unfortunately.
How do you immerse yourself so completely in such different roles? milinovakI love the challenge of how you have to launch off one into another. You can go from Paddington Bear to Shakespeare to TV comedy. Someone told me a story about Helen Mirren playing Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Apparently, before she’d go on stage to play this beautiful queen, she’d go into this alter ego of a fish-and-chip seller from the East End. She needed to launch from the opposite to balance out. I really understand how you need these different energies. Once you’ve done one kind of role, you need to go in the opposite direction.
What is the best advice you have been given? carolodonovan76In my late 20s, I did a film with Jane Campion [Bright Star]. She could tell I was a people pleaser and made it clear that wasn’t going be helpful on this particular project. She gave me the space to not be like that. It’s not helpful to feel like you have to please all the time. You have to find something deeper within yourself than a wish to be liked, or to keep the peace. That’s something I’m still very interested in.
The Guardian has called you “Britain’s most likable actor”. Are you? LaurenceNI never think of myself as likable. I don’t think of the characters I’ve played as likable. They are kind of messy. You can’t aim to be likable. Maybe I’m just likable because I’m Paddington. Who doesn’t like him?
• Women Talking is in UK cinemas now