By Emma Weidmann | Arts and Life Editor
Winnie the Pooh reimagined as a serial killer, Abraham Lincoln armed with garlic and Elizabeth Bennett, finding her Mr. Darcy during the zombie apocalypse.
What do these twisted silver screen spin-offs have in common?
Professor of film theory Dr. James Kendrick said as soon as beloved classics like “Winnie the Pooh” and “Pride and Prejudice” among others enter the public domain, they’re up for grabs for hungry young filmmakers who want to be the first to “take a stab” at the franchise.
The recent release of “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” which sees the beloved bear and friends go on a violent rampage after Christopher Robin leaves for college, drew attention for its shock value, and it paid off.
With a budget of under $100,000, “Blood and Honey” reaped more than $3 million in theaters in a limited release.
“This is an opportunistic grab on the fact that ‘Winnie the Pooh’ just recently entered the public domain,” Kendrick said. “This literally would not have been an option a few years ago, so this is a canny strategy by the filmmakers to be the first to jump into the fray and do this.”
Film major and White Bear Lake, Minn., sophomore Noelle Sommars said horror films have the opportunity to teach a lesson or a moral, but they often don’t.
“I love horror movies when they have a purpose and an intention in mind,” Sommars said. “There are quite a few that have a hidden moral, a silver-lining throughout it, and that kind of shows to me and to other people subconsciously while watching it that there’s a reason and a purpose for it being made.”
As a fan of coming-of-age movies, Sommars said a sense of “childlike innocence” in a movie is important to her, something that films like “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” warp for shock value. According to Sommars, horror should have a purpose other than pure emotion.
“It’s so easy to make a movie purely for the scare, purely to get a rise out of the audience,” Sommars said. “With my own morals and values, I don’t like instilling fear for the sake of fear.”
“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” may be just that. Movies like these rely on morbid curiosity to sell tickets, according to Kendrick.
“I don’t think anybody went into [‘Blood and Honey’] thinking this was going to be a good movie, had any illusions that this was going to be a good movie, but ‘I have to see what they’re going to do with this concept, where are they gonna take this,’” Kendrick said.
So, what is horror with a purpose?
Kendrick said horror movies often reflect the fears or worries on the minds of society at a certain moment in history. In the ‘50s, horror or thriller films often centered on nuclear disaster as a reflection of Cold War era America’s anxiety over an impending attack.
However, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” doesn’t seem to reflect much, according to Kendrick.
“Clearly, there’s an inherent sort of ‘jokiness’ to it, because you’re taking Winnie the Pooh and making him into a vicious killer,” Kendrick said. “I mean, that’s just fundamentally absurd on its face … it’s kind of meant to be a campy, ‘jokey’ horror movie, where the premise is the main thing … that’s the hook.”
Kendrick said spin-off movies like these are part of a current culture of spins on classic material, sampling old music and more. Does any of this mean that horror film spin-offs of this type are devoid of artistic value? Not so fast.
Kendrick said it comes down to the artist and what they’re trying to do with their art.
“Great art can be made out of remnants of other art forms,” Kendrick said. “It can be lazy. I don’t think the form itself is inherently lazy, but it can be. Do they have an interesting take on it? Do they have anything unique to say that will allow us to look at something in a new way that we haven’t considered before?”
