Summary
Horror adaptations of children’s stories are on the rise, with two more set for 2024 release.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey sparked interest in other horror versions, making way for Bampire and Your Monster.
Artists are modernizing public domain stories with a horror twist, aiming to shock and captivate audiences.
Among the ongoing trends in the horror genre are adaptations of children’s stories and fairy tales, and two more are secretly getting horror adaptations in 2024. Thanks to some classic tales and characters meant for a young audience becoming public domain, many artists have seized the opportunity to modernize them and give them a twist. In many cases, these changes are towards a horror route, giving a whole new perspective to these once innocent characters and stories, but not without a good dose of controversy.
While horror versions of fairy tales and children’s stories are not a new practice, they gained force and attention with the release of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Despite being a critical failure, Blood and Honey sparked interest in more horror versions of kid-friendly characters and tales, and a couple of them are now in development. Blood and Honey even kicked off its own cinematic universe, with more movies based on other children’s tales in development. Outside this universe, two other well-known fairy tales are getting horror movies set for a 2024 release, though they haven’t gotten as much attention as other projects.
Related Cinderella’s New Horror Movie Finally Does Justice To The Princess In 2 Big Ways Cinderella is getting a horror movie with Cinderella’s Revenge, which, surprisingly, is doing justice to the princess in two major ways.
Bambi & Beauty and the Beast Horror Movies Are Releasing In 2024
Bampire
is a gory, R-rated horror comedy set in the late 1990s.
Bambi and Beauty and the Beast are getting their own horror movies in 2024, with important changes to the characters, settings, and parts of their stories. Bambi is already getting a horror movie, titled Bambi: The Reckoning, as part of the universe of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, and it will follow a woman and her son who are hunted down by a bloodthirsty deer after becoming stranded in the woods following a car wreck. Bambi is getting another horror movie titled Bampire, directed by Taylor Morden and written by Zoë Wassman, who described it as “Evil Dead 2 meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (via Bloody Disgusting).
Bampire is described as a gory, R-rated horror-comedy set in the late 1990s and follows five community college students who, along with their professor, set out to document unprecedented evidence of a rare fanged deer species in the foothills of the Cascades. Their adventure soon takes a deadly turn when they realize they aren’t dealing with a typical deer (via Indiegogo). Bampire is also teased to combine live-action performances, hand-drawn animation, practical effects, a claymation sequence, and VHS footage. Bampire is a crowdfunded project, and it’s aiming for an October 2024 release.
Your Monster
is based on a short film, but the similarities to
Beauty and the Beast
are pretty obvious.
Beauty and the Beast is also getting a horror version in 2024 with the movie titled Your Monster, directed by Caroline Lindy. Your Monster is based on Lindy’s 2019 short film of the same name, but the similarities to Beauty and the Beast are pretty obvious. Your Monster follows Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), who, while recovering from surgery, is dumped by her longtime boyfriend and retreats to her childhood home to recover. There she meets a weird but charming monster (Tommy Dewey) living in her closet, with whom she forms a very strong bond. The first images of Your Monster clearly reveal its Beauty and the Beast inspiration.
Your Monster
has been acquired by Vertical, and is expected to be released in 2024.
Why So Many Children’s Stories Are Getting Horror Versions
Custom image by Simone Ashmoore.
Taking these once-innocent characters and stories is guaranteed to shock the audience.
As mentioned above, various children’s stories and characters are now in the public domain, giving artists the freedom to take them and do what they want with them. Others are about to join the public domain, with artists preparing for when the time comes. In many other cases, filmmakers take children’s stories and make enough changes to them in order to avoid legal issues (as is the case for Your Monster), but their source of inspiration is still clear.
Taking these once-innocent characters and stories is guaranteed to shock the audience, meaning these projects will gather attention no matter what. It’s definitely an interesting experience seeing fairy tale characters take very dark turns and become horror characters, but the change of tone and their stories have to be very well crafted in order to succeed.
Source: Bloody Disgusting, Indiegogo.