The affectionate Winnie the Pooh has become a killing machine. His taste for honey is over, now he has beheading and blood.
The Hundred Acre Wood has been colonized by the forces of evil. The kind bear, the image of childhood celebration, and his gang of friends (Robin, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga or Ígor) are already part of the darker side of the soul.
This Friday, after a successful premiere in Mexico, the movie Winnie the Pooh: blood and honey (blood and honey) reaches 1,500 screens in North America.
Warning: this gore film does not fit with children, unless it is intended to create a personality disorder in them and, instead of training them to be useful people, they turn out to be asocial monsters. After 95 years of repeating that "a hug is always the right size", Winnie undergoes a mutation and with her colleague Piglet they emerge as a pair of nightmarish psychopaths committing gruesome crimes. Like another version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the back of the Disney factory.
This tragic transformation is due to the expiration of the copyright on A.A.'s Winnie the Pooh book on January 1, 2021. Milne, published in 1926 with illustrations by E.H. Shepard, and this allowed it to enter the public domain.
The British Rhys Frake-Waterfield saw a vein and conceived a terrifying idea. The matter has already spread through the networks, where he has even received threats for corrupting the minds of children. "It is as if we intentionally wanted to put more evil than good in the world," he read himself in a message. "I am going to destroy seven billion childhoods," he replied in a video. And he added: "I'm kidding."
In his first film as a director, and with a budget of $100,000, Frake-Waterfield wanted to "frighten, shock and disgust." Under a market premise, he considered that "horror needs a hook." When he learned that the gentle bear was no longer copyrighted, he began to craft the idea of him from a character to whom he had no special affection or connection.
This film can be the prelude to what comes in the future. In the next ten years, characters as typical of pop culture as Bugs Bunny, Batman and Superman will pass into the public domain. Without going so far, Mickey Mouse has the date set for next January.
Any reconversion of these heroes will be painful, but Winnie, according to critics, represents a true religion with her good-hearted wit and kind-hearted spirit.
But, like everyone, he had an animal inside.
