Nightmarish Willy Wonka Experience Inspires a Horror Movie

Movies

You know those lousy, low-budget horror movies they make out of children’s properties like Winnie the Pooh and the newly free-to-use Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willy? Well, they may have finally found a good source to adapt. If you haven’t heard the story, a children’s event based on the classic novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory called The Willy Wonka Experience (or Willy’s Chocolate Experience; nobody seems to agree on what the name is) was recently held in Glasgow, Scotland. The advertisement promised a wondrous interactive attraction that brought the fantasy world of Willy Wonka to life. The reality was a near-empty warehouse with cardboard sets, creepy costumes, and candy-making tables that looked like they belonged in a drug den. Those fun, vibrant pictures used to advertise The Willy Wonka Experience were made with AI, another indication that The Terminator was right about this technology. Many of the children cried and, with tickets costing £35 (which is about $44, according to The New York Times), parents weren’t pleased either. (The group that put the event together is called The Illuminati; if you saw that in a movie, you’d think it was too ridiculous to be true.) The Critical Drinker and his panel talked about it in this clip from his last “Open Bar”:

It’s the stuff of nightmares – at least, that’s what Scottish production company Kaledonia Pictures hopes, because, according to Bloody Disgusting, they’ve announced a horror movie based on the fiasco. The film will be called The Unknown, which is the name the internet has given to some twisted-looking creature in a silver mask that came out to terrorize the kids who just wanted some chocolate. This character is not in any version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which means the people behind The Willy Wonka Experience (The Illuminati; I still can’t get over that) thought it would be a good idea to throw in a demonic monster to scare small children. Kaledonia Pictures released the following synopsis for The Unknown, which is aiming for a release later this year:

“The film, gearing up for production and a late 2024 release, follows a renowned illustrator and his wife who are haunted by the tragic death of their son, Charlie. Desperate to escape their grief, the couple leave the world behind for the remote Scottish Highlands – where an unknowable evil awaits them.”

It looks like The Unknown isn’t really based on The Willy Wonka Experience so much as it’s taking vague inspiration from it, particularly in terms of the titular monster. It’s almost a shame because, unlike those stupid Disney-inspired horror movies, this is a good basis for a scary movie. Imagine a psycho – or group of psychos – who advertises a fun experience similar to this one, then locks the kids and their parents in a hellish dungeon or some such and tries to kill them for horror-movie reasons. That could work. And we’ve all seen the memes over the years; we know that it doesn’t take much to turn Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory into a horror story. A spooky movie set in the Scottish Highlands is a cool idea, too, but this still seems like a missed opportunity.

Sidebar: If you’re ever in Glasgow, look for a place called Lebowski’s and thank me later.