Editorial: Are Twisted Fairytales Necessary?

Ghosts and monsters are fun, but blood and gore may not be every horror fan's cup of tea.

For many, a horror movie experience includes actually watching every scene and immersing themselves in the plot. But where blood and guts are involved, not many can stomach those gory scenes.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey worked as a twisted fanfiction of the original story written by A.A. Milne. The characters entered the public domain after 95 years, which meant that they could be featured in twisted, gory horror movies. However, Winnie-the-Pooh's red t-shirt can still not be used as Disney retains the copyrights for that rendering of the beloved bear.

The new version of Winnie-the-Pooh is straight out of a nightmare, and since the budget was limited, what we got to see in the first movie was really bad makeup and masks.

The movie was panned by critics who even suggested that watching this version of Pooh was as good as eating arsenic instead of honey.

But surprisingly, the senseless violence depicted in the movie worked. Blood and Honey managed to run packed theatres and was even awarded extra screenings.

The movie's sequel was immediately greenlit and the budget was initially increased to five times the original budget of the first movie but eventually ended up getting ten times more.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 was released in March and though it unsurprisingly garnered more negative reviews than positive ones, it was noted that the sequel was a far better movie than the original.

The masks and make up was better and since Tigger, the over enthusiastic bouncy character from the children's books, entered public domain too, his character was featured in the sequel too.

The sequel managed to make a profit. A third movie was greenlit and is already in the works. This time it will add even more characters from the book like Rabbit, Heffalumps, and the Woozles.

And as if that isn't enough, there is talks to include characters from other fairytales in the Poohniverse.

So there is Peter Pan, Bambi, and Pinocchio that may get the twisted treatment too.

These tales, that we loved as a child and still held close in our hearts as we walked into adulthood, have been cherished. It is the innocence in the stories that we grew up with, the simple tales of love and friendship that fostered us.

But these stories are also on the verge of being forgotten and set aside as the new generation hungers for more stimualting stories. There is a market for horror and gore, and the new generation of theatre-goers want plots that can be extreme in nature. They do not believe in fairytales. The real world has hardened them too quickly and they want to watch realistic stories.

They understand that the world isn't as innocent as it seems. Watching violent, horror movies helps them vent out frustrations.

Winnie-the-Pooh's twisted version may not suit everyone's taste but at least it will keep the original stories alive for a bit longer.

Viewers will want to know how these characters have been altered from the original stories and may look into the past.

In this way, maybe some of the literature from the past can be retained and preserved for future generations.