In the same vein as Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey, the Grinch is getting a horror makeover this Christmas.
This year, beloved child character Winnie the Pooh has already become a deranged serial killer in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey after the creation of AA Milne entering the public domain. Now it seems that Dr. Seuss character The Grinch also takes a nasty turn in new horror film The averagewhere the grumpy green Christmas hater turns into a violent threat around the holidays.
It’s no stranger to The Grinch to be adapted for both TV and cinema, with Jim Carrey playing a live-action version of the character, Benedict Cumberbatch playing the part in a recent animated feature, and horror icon Boris Karloff lending his voice to the classic animated tv from 1966 special. This time it sounds like the not so happy green creature isn’t coming out to entertain the kids.
As reported by Damn disgusting, The average will keep some of the classic story How the Grinch Stole Christmasbut will both parody and twist it into a horror slasher movie, starring David Howard Thornton of Terrifier in the title role. According to the blurb “The average (David Howard Thornton) is a furry green-skinned grunt in a Santa suit who lives on a mountain high above the town of Newville and despises the holidays. Young Cindy You-Know-Who (Krystle Martin), whose parents were massacred by The Mean One twenty Christmases earlier, returns to town to seek closure… but is about to discover that this devil with a heart that two sizes too small is still quite eager to cut the roast beast.”
The Mean One continues the trend of reimagining children’s characters in horror movies
The average is the second film this year in which a beloved childhood character is transformed into a horrific killer after Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey turned Pooh and Piglet into sadistic monsters. Coming in quick succession, these movies are almost a new subgenre that could potentially give many other classic children’s characters an R-rating for adult entertainment.
Alex Williams, the acquisition and development manager at XYZ Films, which distributes the film, said in a statement:
“As a passionate fan of seasonal horror (and the Terrifier franchise), The Mean One is exactly the kind of movie that lands on my personal ‘beautiful list.’ This movie is a stunningly awesome time with a brutally subversive twist from David Howard Thornton — and XYZ Films is so proud to bring this soon-to-be iconic Christmas slasher to the public this holiday season.”
This is of course not something entirely new. The world of comic books and video games has previously been immersed in classic children’s literature to some horrific iterations of Alice in Wonderland in Alice by American McGee, which itself seems to be moving forward with an adaptation of the TV series. After the attention Blood and Honey got and the creator said he already sees Peter Pan as another possible target, The averageWith the success of this Christmas, many more of these films could be made in the near future.
The average will be published on December 15.