Rob Price
For many of us, especially those of us over a certain age, there are certain characters from both books and movies that resonate with us from our childhood. Two such characters are Winnie-the-Pooh and Mickey Mouse. In recent years, a trend has occurred to take characters such as these that have entered Public Domain territory and turn them into horror movie franchises. In this article we will examine the sequel to last year’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and the new movie The Mouse Trap that uses the original Mickey Mouse image from Steamboat Willie whose intellectual rights fell into public domain in January of 2024 allowing this movie to be made.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
After escaping Pooh (Ryan Oliva) and Piglet’s (Edddy MacKenzie) killing spree in the Hundred Acre Woods, Christopher Robins (Scott Chambers) returns to the nearby town of Ashdown, but as the bodies are recovered, few people believe Christopher’s story, and many believe he is to blame. The incident is dubbed the “Hundred Acre Massacre”. His family and friends believe him, but he soon loses his job, and his property is constantly being vandalized. Pooh and Piglet have also returned and are joined by a couple of their other friends from the original story, Owl (Marcus Massey) and Tigger (Lewis Santer), who all believe that to get back at Christopher the entire town of Ashdown should be destroyed and all the inhabitants killed, starting with those closest to Christopher. We also discover that years before all of this, seven kids were taken from a birthday party that Christopher and all of his friends, including his girlfriend, Lexy (Tallulah Evans) were at when they were all kids. One of the children taken was Christopher’s own brother Billy. As he begins to remember the events of that day, the past and present begin to connect, and a dark Ashdown secret is revealed. Pooh, Tigger and Owl go on a rampage with Christopher and Lexy trying to save their family and friends. Who will survive and who will die? Watch and find out!
This movie is slightly better than the first, it is still extremely gory and violent, and it knows it and is targeting an audience that likes that, but it was just a bit too much for me. I loved the introduction and portrayal of Owl and the overall production value, atmosphere and costume redesign was much improved in this film. I liked the plot elements and connecting a past traumatic event to current events, which added a bit more complexity to the story and the characters and a tiny mystery element to be solved. This is the second movie planned to exist in the Twisted Childhood Universe which will include Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare. Bambi is set for a 2025 release. A crossover movie titled Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble has also been announced and will have the Pooh and Bambi characters along with other fairytale iterations not yet seen.
The Mouse Trap
The story is told in flashbacks as being told by Becca (Mackenzie Mills) one of the few survivors of the attack. She is being interviewed by two detectives and is currently detained. Becca relates that Alex Fen (Sophie McIntosh) who works at a large video arcade that she has spent much of her childhood at. When she is asked by her boss to stay late to chaperone a private party, she is surprised to find out the party is for her, thrown by a group of her friends as a surprise party to celebrate her 21st birthday. Three of the party goers all have crushes on the sweet and nice Alex. Ryan (Ben Harris) the conceited jock, Marcus (Callum Sywyk) the nerdy nice guy and Becca herself. Before the party begins, her boss, Tim (Simon Phillips) goes into his private office and begins watching an old film reel of Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. He begins to hear noises and accidentally spills some whisky on the frayed cord to the projector. The sounds turn to a voice coming from a mask of Mickey in a glass case urging Tim to put it on. And thus, the killing spree begins. But this is no basic run of the mill slasher, he has the ability to teleport allowing him to nearly be in multiple places at once. The young partiers soon realize they are trapped in an arcade maze with a killer that has special powers and soon discover his weakness is strobe lights like the flickering of a film moving through a projector which removes his teleportation powers. Can Alex and her friends survive this maniacal mouse? Watch and find out!
The film actually starts off with a fun ”Star Wars” type scroll that comically covers its ass explaining that this film is not sactioned and is no way related to Disney and it also removes itself from Lucas film for using the generic space scroll. But then I got a little worried when the acting of the two detectives seemed pretty bad, specifically Nick Biskupek playing the tough guy bad cop. Damir Kovic who plays the younger, handsom, “nice” cop was a bit better and as the film progressed their characters both grew on me. But once we moved into the actual story of the film, the entire production value greatly improved. The acting was what you would expect from a relatively well-done slasher film with each actor playing their part well. The movie moves along at a good pace and has a nice rhythm and overall, I was entertained. One big plot hole I would have liked them to have elaborated on, was what exactly created or caused Tim to become the superpowered slasher. My theory is that the film real itself was haunted but would have been harmless until Tim spilled liquid on the frayed cord and the shock somehow released the evil Mickey spirit, but this is an educated guess since they never actually say what it is or what caused it. I was really impressed with the film and was going to give it a pretty good review, until the ending. Some relatively good movies can be completely destroyed by the ending, and this is one of those films. There is a point that the film just seems to stop, with one big, awful twist at the end that just ruins the rest of the film and makes the audience wonder why they just sat through this film. So, I liked the film…but the ending sucks!
