Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble

Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble is a 2025 British independent slasher film produced by Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios and distributed by Altitude Film Distribution. It is the sixth installment of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) and the sequel to the previous five installments Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), its sequel, Bambi: The Reckoning, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, and Pinocchio Unstrung (all 2024), which collectively as horror retellings for A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books, Felix Salten's novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods, JM Barrie's play Peter and Wendy, and Carlos Collodi's children's fantasy novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, respectively, as well as the culmination for and the final film in Phase One of the TCU and the prequel to the three announced films for Phase Two, said films being Awakening Sleeping Beauty, Steamboat Willie; Hell At Sea, and Alice in Tortureland. Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and written by Matt Leslie, the film follows Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Owl, Piglet, Pinocchio, the Talking Cricket, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Tinkerbell as they unite to take down survivors Christopher Robin, Lexy, Helen "Bunny" Robin, Wendy Darling, Michael Darling, Xana, Benji, Alice, Geppetto, and the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair and destroy the community of Ashdown once and for all, attempting to kill the tyrannical ink-and-paint-born demon Steamboat Willie in the process. The ensemble cast includes Scott Chambers, Ryan Oliva, Roxanne McKee, Martin Portlock, Lewis Santer, Megan Placito, Charity Kase, Eddy MacKenzie, Lora Hristova, Brad Dourif, Tallulah Evans, Anthony Hopkins, Thea Evans, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Tom Mulheron, Kaylee Hottle, Marcus Massey, Sam Barrett, Gary Oldman, Kit Green, Stephen Staley, Toby Wynn-Davies, Victoria Mable, Simon Callow, and Eric Bauza.
The film was officially announced alongside the reveal of the theatrical release poster on May 18, 2024, where Frake-Waterfield signed on to return as director and Leslie, who previously wrote Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 and Pinocchio Unstrung for the TCU, writing the screenplay. The cast was revealed in June 2024, followed by the reveal that Steamboat Willie, the earliest version of Mickey Mouse featured in the now public domain 1928 Disney cartoon of the same name, would be featured in November 2024. Filming took place throughout East Sussex from January to May 2025. Several people and companies returned for this movie; Shaune Harrison and Paula Anne Booker-Harrison of The Prosthetics Studio returned to handle the practical gore effects and the prosthetic makeup for Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Owl, Piglet, Sleeping Beauty, the Mad Hatter, Peter Pan, and Captain Hook, while Todd Masters and his special effects studio MastersFX returned to work on the puppetry and animatronic work for Pinocchio and the visual effects for Bambi, the Talking Cricket, the Cheshire Cat and Steamboat Willie were once again provided by Ghost VFX.
Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble premiered at the Prince Charles Cinema on October 26, 2025, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 31 and in its home country of the United Kingdom on December 8, as the sixth and final film of the TCU's first phase. It received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences, who deemed it the best installment of the TCU thus far. It was praised for its direction, themes, death sequences, production values, and acting, but criticized the overlong runtime, deviations from the source materials of some of the fairytale icons turned murderers in the film, pacing, and extensive product placement of the franchise's future installments. It grossed $200 million against a production budget of $45 million.
Category:Non-fanon
Category:Non-Fanon
Category:Horror films
Category:Horror films based on the Children's franchises
Category:Slasher film
Category:Slasher
Category:Independent films