Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse have been horror movie fodder since the characters entered the public domain in 2022 and 2024. On Monday, Untouchables Entertainment announced the latest addition to the public domain horror sub-genre, “The Dark Domain: Mickey-vs-Winnie.” The new “versus” horror film pits the two beloved childhood icons against each other in a monstrous battle for survival.
Directed by Glenn Douglas Packard, “The Dark Domain: Mickey-vs-Winnie” tells of two convicts who disappear in the 1920s into the Hell Forest, a place feared for its dark legends and whispers of a malevolent curse. Their mysterious vanishing marks the beginning of tales about a sinister force lurking within the forest, feeding on those who dared to enter.
In the present day, a group of childhood friends, each haunted by their own unresolved traumas and fears, feels an inexplicable pull to return to the reform school they once attended. Nestled in the center of the forest’s dark heart, the abandoned hell-camp stands as a decaying monument to their lost innocence. Its walls echoing with secrets and forgotten horrors. Each of them is drawn by a force they cannot understand, as if the forest itself is calling them to confront the darkness of their anxieties, regrets, and unhealed wounds.
The forest takes shape in the grotesque forms of twisted versions of two beloved childhood figures: Dark Mickey (Daniel Wilkinson; “Pitchfork”) and Dark Winnie (Chris Boudreaux; “Born a Champion”). The film also introduces new characters like The Stitcher, Hellshadowers, and The Wickeds. These monstrous entities, born from the darkest corners of the group’s psyche, embody their worst fears and regrets—Dark Mickey, a sinister manipulator and bloodthirsty force of chaos, and Dark Winnie, a feral predator who thrives on destruction.
As the two clash in a violent, unrelenting battle, their fight becomes more than a physical confrontation. These twisted incarnations, born from the group’s own inner demons, force them to face not only the nightmarish creatures but also the darkness within themselves.
“I love that we can take these iconic childhood characters from A.A. Milne’s original Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and the 1928 Steamboat Willie version of Mickey and create a whole new wicked universe,” said Packard. “Our film is like the Upside Down World, with these public domain icons getting into a horror smackdown akin to Freddy vs. Jason.”
The “twisted fairytale has finished post-production and is expected to premiere later this year.
