Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey!While audiences are already shocked by the lead character being a slasher villain, writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield has explained why Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey turned one iconic character into a villain. The horror movie centers on the eponymous anthropomorphic bear and his friend Piglet as they embark on a murder spree in the Hundred Acre Wood. Produced after Pooh entered the public domain, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey became a viral sensation for its dark twist on the childhood character, which has already helped it at the box office.
In honor of the film's theatrical release, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Rhys Frake-Waterfield to discuss Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. When asked about including Easter eggs to other Winnie the Pooh characters, the writer/director explained his decision to kill off Eeyore in the film's opening and turning his tail into a weapon later in the movie. See what Frake-Waterfield shared below:
The other one is, yes, Eeyore's tail. I thought it would just be crazy if there's a scene where Pooh has to pick up a weapon, and there's a load of different weapons available, and they're all kind of pipes and wrenches and barbed wire, and then eventually, the one he picks up is his old friend's tail off the wall, and he uses that like a whip. I just thought it was a funny thing to introduce, so I hope some people who realize that do laugh at it and do just have fun, because that's kind of what I wanted for this film. I don't want it to just be dead serious, I wanted to have these fun, silly little moments in there just to make people smile.
How Blood & Honey Adapts Winnie The Pooh
Rather than acting as a direct adaptation of A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard's characters, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey marks a horror retelling of the material, opening with the reveal that Pooh, Piglet, Owl and Rabbit were abandoned by Christopher Robin when he went to college. In order to survive the winter, the group took to killing and eating Eeyore, the donkey best remembered for his gloomy personality and for his tail having to frequently be nailed to his behind. This led to them holding a hatred for everything human-related, making a pact to never talk again and return to their feral roots.
Though the film included the majority of the characters, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey notably lacked any inclusion or mention of beloved tiger, Tigger. Frake-Waterfield has recently explained the character's absence, explaining because he's not in the public domain, and as such still owned by Disney, they couldn't include any reference to him. The writer/director also teased early discussions about making Pooh a killer teddy bear for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, though the CGI required would've been too expensive.
Frake-Waterfield has confirmed plans for a Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey sequel, as well as a cinematic universe of horror retellings based on Bambi, Peter Pan and more. With Rabbit and Owl only appearing in the opening animatic, the writer/director also exclusively teased that Rabbit will appear in one of the next installments as a "wired" character. While audiences await updates for the future, they can catch Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey in theaters through February 23.