Latest news with #MouseTrap
The Age
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
First Winnie-the-Pooh became a murderer, now Bambi? Why children's classics are going dark
The Hundred Acre Wood is a magical place. It's where Winnie-the-Pooh enjoys his honey, while Piglet tracks down 'Heffalumps', and Tigger bounces around on his springy tail. But what has long been a joyful childhood memory has recently been transformed into a hellish nightmare. In 2023, British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield released Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a slasher adaptation of the A.A. Milne children's classic. In it, the cute and cuddly Pooh doesn't eat honey – instead, he drinks the blood of his victims. Piglet isn't a nervous, loyal friend, but a sledgehammer-wielding maniac. Oh, and Eeyore, the gloomy yet loveable donkey, has been eaten by his Hundred Acre Wood chums. Oh, bother. It's not just Pooh and pals who are going dark. Peter Pan became a mutilated child-abductor in Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Mickey Mouse turned into a birthday party serial killer in Mickey's Mouse Trap, and, in late July, Bambi appeared as a mutated, ravenous monster in Bambi: The Reckoning. These films are part of an emerging phenomenon in horror cinema, wherein beloved children's characters that have fallen out of copyright are turned into terrifying, twisted killers. 'I think it's perfectly normal to enjoy watching Winnie-the-Pooh decapitate someone and smash their head in,' says Frake-Waterfield. 'A lot of horror feels pretty repetitive, so we wanted to make something that made people go: 'What the f--- is that?', 'Someone actually made this?', 'What's wrong with that director?'' Despite their apparent perversion, the low-budget films are attracting decent crowds. Blood and Honey cost less than $155,000 to make, yet grossed over $8 million worldwide. Its sequel, though not as successful as the first, still made over $1.57 million globally against a microbudget. To put that into perspective, a major action release like Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which cost over $600 million to produce, just managed to turn a profit with around $920 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Blood and Honey earned its budget back nearly 52 times over. Not everyone is on board, however. The films have generally been critically panned – Blood and Honey even swept five Razzies (the spoof Oscars for terrible films) in 2024 – and social media has been rife with thinkpieces arguing they're an abomination. So, what is it about these films that rubs some people the wrong way, and how have they managed to gain momentum despite the backlash? Why now? Loading In January 2022, the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne entered the public domain. This meant that the characters depicted in the children's classic were suddenly up for grabs, freeing the way for directors like Frake-Waterfield to reimagine Pooh as a vengeful murderer – without getting slammed with a copyright infringement suit. A.A. Milne's characters were followed by the earliest version of Bambi from Felix Salten's 1923 book, which lapsed copyright in 2022, and the original version of Mickey Mouse, otherwise known as Steamboat Willie, which entered the public domain two years later. Notably, the Disney iterations of these characters are all still under copyright. That's why Mickey's Mouse Trap doesn't contain a surprise cameo from a killer Donald Duck – that character was a Disney addition to Mickey's clubhouse. It's also why Pooh isn't wearing a red crop top in Blood and Honey – Pooh didn't get his Disney red shirt until 1932. Frake-Waterfield says he's always been interested in grabbing any IP he could 'get away with using'. 'If I get sued, I won't do it. That's my limit for now. That said, I might dabble a bit further at some point, just to see where the boundaries really are.' Artistic brilliance? If profit margins alone were considered, these films would be undisputed hits, particularly given how little is needed to create them (Frake-Waterfield says they typically spend around £300,000 on production). Their relative financial success shouldn't be too surprising, Isaacs says. Horror is, after all, a subversive genre. 'Art should make us feel really uncomfortable sometimes,' he says. 'There's a gleefulness in a horror film saying it's willing to push the envelope to such a degree that it'll take your most treasured figure and turn it into some dark, perverse object. There's something artistically interesting and challenging in doing that.' It's also politically interesting. Traditional Disney stories, for example, tend to serve conservative liberal narratives to children, exploring what some may consider problematic views on gender and power – take the 'good king' versus 'bad king' in The Lion King. These slasher adaptations, however, flip this on its head. 'Why shouldn't somebody be able to take the image of so-called innocence and reconstruct it as this dark figure? There's something intrinsically valuable in that kind of reconstruction, aside from the fact that it's also just bloody funny,' Isaacs says. It's not like the children's stories being adapted are the epitome of joy, either. Dr Gregory Dolgopolov, artistic director of the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival and film researcher at UNSW, says many of these tales were initially moral parables containing violence and horror to address real anxieties – elements later sanitised by the 20th-century commercial interests that monetised those stories. 'Confronting darkness in stories, even for children in appropriate forms, can serve an important psychological purpose by helping audiences process fear,' he says. 'Everyone knows Pooh and loves him, so it's easy to rework that material into a darker mode and exploit it as part of the audience's pleasure and to break taboos.' Or abomination? Since releasing Blood and Honey, Frake-Waterfield says he regularly receives hate online. The most recent message read: 'You f---ing psychopath, what drugs are you on?' 'The hate and backlash really is relentless. We get abuse daily, everything from verbal attacks and death threats to personal insults. Scott [Jeffrey], my co-producer, even has a stalker now,' Frake-Waterfield says. 'Luckily, I've got pretty thick skin, so it doesn't really affect me.' This backlash is largely due to some people's emotional ties to the source material, Dolgopolov says, and broader concerns around the preservation of cherished cultural artefacts. 'These films challenge audiences' nostalgic love for safe symbols of our childhoods. For some, crossing that line simply feels wrong, no matter how inventive or legally permissible the result may be.' Others, Dolgopolov adds, are convinced these films are merely made for shock value and commercial exploitation rather than meaningful artistic commentary. Will these cuddly killers live on? Frake-Waterfield has big plans for this sub-genre. In 2024, Jagged Edge Productions (which distributes most of these films) announced the 'Twisted Childhood Universe', a Marvel-esque crossover that will bring Pooh and all his wicked friends together on-screen. What will the Twisted Childhood Universe look like? Frake-Waterfield says he and Jagged Edge Productions have so far planned 11 phases. Phase one is nearly complete. It includes two Blood and Honey movies, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, and Bambi: The Reckoning. Pinocchio: Unstrung, which will see the beloved puppet string people up, will be next, with an expected release date sometime this year. 'Phase one will culminate in Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, where all the villains work together in an Avengers-style encounter. There will be a 'big bad' in this movie akin to someone like Thanos,' Frake-Waterfield says. The next 10 phases will commence following this, though the director says the specific productions are being kept under tight wraps. Though phase 11 is as far as they have planned, Frake-Waterfield says there's probably ample room for more. Though its audience will probably remain niche, Isaacs says the fandom shouldn't disappear, especially as its engagement is deepened through new adapted characters and crossover films. It points to a general boom in horror recently, which has seen franchises like Smile unexpectedly gain major global success. Loading However, these adaptation films ultimately don't even need to rely on the box office, because much of their success is derived from buzz on social media and online forums. It's important to remember that creatives have been adapting works of art for centuries, Isaacs says. So, why police this particular form of adaptation? 'The nature of subversive art is to go where other forms of traditional art won't go … Works [are] being coded, re-coded and reinterpreted constantly, that's what makes art exciting. I worry that as an artistic culture, we've been asked to police boundaries more, and that's often unhealthy. We should enable people to experience weirdness alongside the traditional, conventional, respectful stuff.' Loading Dolgopolov agrees, noting that he wouldn't be surprised if Australian creators eventually jumped on the bandwagon. 'I expect someone will pitch a story about Mr Squiggle, Skippy, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie cooking up a beef Wellington and going on a bloody rampage, as they hunt down Ivan Milat and challenge Ginger Meggs and the Gumnut Babies to a final girl showdown,' he says. While he doesn't see any issue with re-imaginings like Blood and Honey, he says it's best if they reinterpret the original material as meaningfully as possible. 'I hope they … love the material and not just use it as a convenient template. Perhaps they could bring out aspects from the original that may be hidden in plain sight – like the philosophical interventions of Eeyore.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
First Winnie-the-Pooh became a murderer, now Bambi? Why children's classics are going dark
The Hundred Acre Wood is a magical place. It's where Winnie-the-Pooh enjoys his honey, while Piglet tracks down 'Heffalumps', and Tigger bounces around on his springy tail. But what has long been a joyful childhood memory has recently been transformed into a hellish nightmare. In 2023, British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield released Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a slasher adaptation of the A.A. Milne children's classic. In it, the cute and cuddly Pooh doesn't eat honey – instead, he drinks the blood of his victims. Piglet isn't a nervous, loyal friend, but a sledgehammer-wielding maniac. Oh, and Eeyore, the gloomy yet loveable donkey, has been eaten by his Hundred Acre Wood chums. Oh, bother. It's not just Pooh and pals who are going dark. Peter Pan became a mutilated child-abductor in Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Mickey Mouse turned into a birthday party serial killer in Mickey's Mouse Trap, and, in late July, Bambi appeared as a mutated, ravenous monster in Bambi: The Reckoning. These films are part of an emerging phenomenon in horror cinema, wherein beloved children's characters that have fallen out of copyright are turned into terrifying, twisted killers. 'I think it's perfectly normal to enjoy watching Winnie-the-Pooh decapitate someone and smash their head in,' says Frake-Waterfield. 'A lot of horror feels pretty repetitive, so we wanted to make something that made people go: 'What the f--- is that?', 'Someone actually made this?', 'What's wrong with that director?'' Despite their apparent perversion, the low-budget films are attracting decent crowds. Blood and Honey cost less than $155,000 to make, yet grossed over $8 million worldwide. Its sequel, though not as successful as the first, still made over $1.57 million globally against a microbudget. To put that into perspective, a major action release like Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which cost over $600 million to produce, just managed to turn a profit with around $920 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Blood and Honey earned its budget back nearly 52 times over. Not everyone is on board, however. The films have generally been critically panned – Blood and Honey even swept five Razzies (the spoof Oscars for terrible films) in 2024 – and social media has been rife with thinkpieces arguing they're an abomination. So, what is it about these films that rubs some people the wrong way, and how have they managed to gain momentum despite the backlash? Why now? Loading In January 2022, the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne entered the public domain. This meant that the characters depicted in the children's classic were suddenly up for grabs, freeing the way for directors like Frake-Waterfield to reimagine Pooh as a vengeful murderer – without getting slammed with a copyright infringement suit. A.A. Milne's characters were followed by the earliest version of Bambi from Felix Salten's 1923 book, which lapsed copyright in 2022, and the original version of Mickey Mouse, otherwise known as Steamboat Willie, which entered the public domain two years later. Notably, the Disney iterations of these characters are all still under copyright. That's why Mickey's Mouse Trap doesn't contain a surprise cameo from a killer Donald Duck – that character was a Disney addition to Mickey's clubhouse. It's also why Pooh isn't wearing a red crop top in Blood and Honey – Pooh didn't get his Disney red shirt until 1932. Frake-Waterfield says he's always been interested in grabbing any IP he could 'get away with using'. 'If I get sued, I won't do it. That's my limit for now. That said, I might dabble a bit further at some point, just to see where the boundaries really are.' Artistic brilliance? If profit margins alone were considered, these films would be undisputed hits, particularly given how little is needed to create them (Frake-Waterfield says they typically spend around £300,000 on production). Their relative financial success shouldn't be too surprising, Isaacs says. Horror is, after all, a subversive genre. 'Art should make us feel really uncomfortable sometimes,' he says. 'There's a gleefulness in a horror film saying it's willing to push the envelope to such a degree that it'll take your most treasured figure and turn it into some dark, perverse object. There's something artistically interesting and challenging in doing that.' It's also politically interesting. Traditional Disney stories, for example, tend to serve conservative liberal narratives to children, exploring what some may consider problematic views on gender and power – take the 'good king' versus 'bad king' in The Lion King. These slasher adaptations, however, flip this on its head. 'Why shouldn't somebody be able to take the image of so-called innocence and reconstruct it as this dark figure? There's something intrinsically valuable in that kind of reconstruction, aside from the fact that it's also just bloody funny,' Isaacs says. It's not like the children's stories being adapted are the epitome of joy, either. Dr Gregory Dolgopolov, artistic director of the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival and film researcher at UNSW, says many of these tales were initially moral parables containing violence and horror to address real anxieties – elements later sanitised by the 20th-century commercial interests that monetised those stories. 'Confronting darkness in stories, even for children in appropriate forms, can serve an important psychological purpose by helping audiences process fear,' he says. 'Everyone knows Pooh and loves him, so it's easy to rework that material into a darker mode and exploit it as part of the audience's pleasure and to break taboos.' Or abomination? Since releasing Blood and Honey, Frake-Waterfield says he regularly receives hate online. The most recent message read: 'You f---ing psychopath, what drugs are you on?' 'The hate and backlash really is relentless. We get abuse daily, everything from verbal attacks and death threats to personal insults. Scott [Jeffrey], my co-producer, even has a stalker now,' Frake-Waterfield says. 'Luckily, I've got pretty thick skin, so it doesn't really affect me.' This backlash is largely due to some people's emotional ties to the source material, Dolgopolov says, and broader concerns around the preservation of cherished cultural artefacts. 'These films challenge audiences' nostalgic love for safe symbols of our childhoods. For some, crossing that line simply feels wrong, no matter how inventive or legally permissible the result may be.' Others, Dolgopolov adds, are convinced these films are merely made for shock value and commercial exploitation rather than meaningful artistic commentary. Will these cuddly killers live on? Frake-Waterfield has big plans for this sub-genre. In 2024, Jagged Edge Productions (which distributes most of these films) announced the 'Twisted Childhood Universe', a Marvel-esque crossover that will bring Pooh and all his wicked friends together on-screen. What will the Twisted Childhood Universe look like? Frake-Waterfield says he and Jagged Edge Productions have so far planned 11 phases. Phase one is nearly complete. It includes two Blood and Honey movies, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, and Bambi: The Reckoning. Pinocchio: Unstrung, which will see the beloved puppet string people up, will be next, with an expected release date sometime this year. 'Phase one will culminate in Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, where all the villains work together in an Avengers-style encounter. There will be a 'big bad' in this movie akin to someone like Thanos,' Frake-Waterfield says. The next 10 phases will commence following this, though the director says the specific productions are being kept under tight wraps. Though phase 11 is as far as they have planned, Frake-Waterfield says there's probably ample room for more. Though its audience will probably remain niche, Isaacs says the fandom shouldn't disappear, especially as its engagement is deepened through new adapted characters and crossover films. It points to a general boom in horror recently, which has seen franchises like Smile unexpectedly gain major global success. Loading However, these adaptation films ultimately don't even need to rely on the box office, because much of their success is derived from buzz on social media and online forums. It's important to remember that creatives have been adapting works of art for centuries, Isaacs says. So, why police this particular form of adaptation? 'The nature of subversive art is to go where other forms of traditional art won't go … Works [are] being coded, re-coded and reinterpreted constantly, that's what makes art exciting. I worry that as an artistic culture, we've been asked to police boundaries more, and that's often unhealthy. We should enable people to experience weirdness alongside the traditional, conventional, respectful stuff.' Loading Dolgopolov agrees, noting that he wouldn't be surprised if Australian creators eventually jumped on the bandwagon. 'I expect someone will pitch a story about Mr Squiggle, Skippy, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie cooking up a beef Wellington and going on a bloody rampage, as they hunt down Ivan Milat and challenge Ginger Meggs and the Gumnut Babies to a final girl showdown,' he says. While he doesn't see any issue with re-imaginings like Blood and Honey, he says it's best if they reinterpret the original material as meaningfully as possible. 'I hope they … love the material and not just use it as a convenient template. Perhaps they could bring out aspects from the original that may be hidden in plain sight – like the philosophical interventions of Eeyore.'
Globe and Mail
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Mark Carney tells Canadians how to play Mouse Trap properly
Maybe you, like me, had a friend who owned the board game Mouse Trap when you were a kid, and perhaps you also coveted that thing all the way down to the deepest chamber of your heart. But in case you don't know this mesmerizing little wonder, it's a Rube Goldberg machine turned into a kids' game with janky little plastic pieces mounted on a cardboard base. If you land in the right spot, you get to kick off a chain reaction: boot kicks over bucket, ball rolls down ramp, lever rises, army guy launches through the air. And if – only if – all of those mechanisms work exactly right, at the end a little net will descend on your opponents' mouse figures, trapping them so you can win. I started thinking about that game as Mark Carney assembled his cabinet and the first real sense of what his government might be and do began to surface from the election haze. There are a few things the Prime Minister took pains to emphasize this week, like critic quotes on a movie poster that help you understand how you're supposed to think about the things you're seeing. One of those ideas is that he is not here to putter. Mr. Carney underlined that his cabinet was sworn in faster and Parliament is returning sooner than those things usually happen after an election, and that the Throne Speech in less than two weeks will lay out his government's mission. 'So we're going to go hard,' he said on Tuesday at Rideau Hall, standing before his freshly minted front bench – the real one built for purpose, not the trivia quiz curiosity he assembled out of found parts when he took over as Liberal Leader shortly before triggering the election campaign. Mussio: For Carney to succeed, he must convince Canada's elite that it's time for change The second big understanding the Prime Minister wanted to land this week is that when the boss changes and focus sharpens, everything is different. CTV's Vassy Kapelos interviewed Mr. Carney, and when she questioned how much would really change given that he has many of the same prominent ministers Canadians have been hearing from for the past several years, his answer was, 'Well, first off, now you're hearing from me. I'm a new prime minister.' She kept pressing him on how his government would deliver something different when his top lieutenants were the people swearing up and down six months ago that Justin Trudeau was doing the Lord's work. The Prime Minister said she was fixating on the wrong thing. 'If I may, you are going into process and personnel,' he said. 'I'm going to results.' He underlined this same idea throughout the leadership race and election campaign, when he would say repeatedly that his government would focus on outcomes, rather than programs created or dollars spent. This clearly implied, but left elegantly unstated, the fact that the Trudeau government really loved touting that it had created this program or shovelled that amount of money out the door. What became of it all after the giant novelty cheque handover and the applause was of much less interest. That government, in other words, really enjoyed the ball rolling down the ramp and the little army guy flying through the air, and always wanted credit for that part of things. Mr. Carney is telling Canadians that the net falling on the mouse at the end is all that matters, and that is what he and his government are focused on. And as for precisely which end results people should judge him by, he laid that out this week too. A reporter asked the Prime Minister what success would look like on the cost of living, or what barometer people should use to judge his government's success. 'Canadians will hold account by their experience at the grocery store, when they're paying their electricity bill, when they or their children are looking for a place to live,' he said, adding, 'And then, of course, accountability comes at the ballot box.' So Mr. Carney says that this government will do things better because it has different leadership – him – and is fixated on results, not seeking credit for effort along the way. He sets the bar for success on those results at Canadians feeling like they can afford their lives more comfortably – even as the economic damage and inflationary strain of U.S. tariffs is quietly accumulating in the national bloodstream at this very moment. The Prime Minister led his party to a wildly improbable election win by promising to handle the greatest existential threat Canada has faced in decades. And he said he would do that while simultaneously refashioning the Canadian economy to work better for its citizens and to absorb the damage dished out by the White House mad king. On Wednesday, when Mr. Carney's new cabinet gathered for the first time, it was one of those rare moments when the ritual and rigidity of politics couldn't slam a lid on the human stuff. Most of the new ministers and secretaries of state had first-day-of-school face: glowing, overwhelmed, frozen and vibrating all at once. One of the journalists remarked to colleagues, in a bless-their-hearts voice, that this would be the very best day for the new cabinet members because it would only get harder. Mr. Carney himself has not looked for one moment even slightly fazed to suddenly find himself Prime Minister. But even for the unflappable, the very beginning of things – when the game board is set up for you, when you can tell yourself that all the little mechanisms are going to function exactly as you expect, when the end result is still a possibility you can pluck out of the future air – is the easiest part.
The Independent
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Horror movie about killer ‘mutated' Bambi shocks social media with first trailer
A new trailer for the upcoming indie horror movie Bambi: The Reckoning has spooked users on social media. The twisted new take on Felix Salten's 1923 coming-of-age novel Bambi, a Life in the Woods, famously adapted in 1942 as the Disney classic Bambi, has been produced by Jagged Edge Productions. The London-based production company was also behind the 2023 slasher Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, the 2024 sequel Blood and Honey 2, and this year's Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare. The horrorsploitation films, which utilize well-known characters from children's classics that have entered the public domain, are said to inhabit 'The Twisted Childhood Universe' or 'Poohniverse.' The official logline for Bambi: The Reckoning reads: 'After a mother and son get in a car wreck, they soon become hunted by Bambi, a mutated grief-stricken deer on a deadly rampage seeking revenge for the death of his mother.' On social media, some users welcomed the idea of an ultra-violent Bambi going feral to seek revenge, with one writing on X: 'Arm the animals against the hunters! YES!' Another wrote: 'F*** yea! Cannot wait! My wife and I love these! We own both of the Winnie the Pooh ones and Mouse Trap! The Twisted Childhood Universe is like getting true versions of all the Grimm brothers stuff before Disney sanitized and romanticized them all. Just waiting for the Peter Pan one to come out on Vudu to snag it too!' The Mouse Trap, which was made by a rival Canadian indie horror studio, applies a similar horrorsploitation treatment to the Disney short Steamboat Willie, which famously featured the public debut of Mickey Mouse. Several praised the Bambi: The Reckoning trailer, with one user writing: 'This trailer with the creepy forest and fog is seriously spooky – giving me chills! The tense vibe is so intense, I'm already worried I won't sleep this summer after seeing it in theaters!' Beneath the Bambi: The Reckoning trailer on YouTube, one fan commented: 'I cant wait. After seeing how different Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare was from Blood and Honey, I'm really excited to see the direction Bambi goes in. Absolutely hooked on these movies.' However, not all social media users were so enthusiastic, with some arguing that the use of old IP is unoriginal. One wrote on X: 'The obsession with taking beloved characters into horror movies is a little annoying, tbh. Just make a decent horror movie without the gimmick.' Another asked: 'We really living in the timeline where bambi is horror now. what's next, cinderella slasher?' While a third questioned simply: 'What the hell is the 'poohniverse'?'
