Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
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 Sorry, but I prefer Michael Myers, thanks
Walt Disney, A.A and Christopher Robin Milne, E.H. Shepard, Paul Winchell (the voice of Tigger), John Fiedler (the voice of Piglet), Ken Sansom (the voice of Rabbit)... we feel for all of you. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a 2023 British independent slasher film written, directed, and produced by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, in his directorial debut. The film serves as a horror retelling of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books and stars Craig David Dowsett as Winnie-the-Pooh and Chris Cordell as Piglet. It follows Pooh and Piglet, who have now become feral and bloodthirsty killers and embark on a murderous rampage, terrorizing a group of young university women and an adult Christopher Robin when he returns to the Hundred Acre Wood five years later after leaving for college.
The film was first announced on 24 May 2022, where it drew widespread attention due to its premise involving a character that garnered a reputation as a "beloved childhood icon" and was met with divided reactions. It went into development after the 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh book entered the public domain in the United States on 1 January 2022. A ten-day period of shooting for the film took place in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England, which serves as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the stories.
Originally set for a nationwide one-night event before its screening, it was then expanded to a major worldwide theatrical release because of its popularity, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey premiered in Mexico on 26 January 2023 and was theatrically released in the United States on 15 February 2023. Its theatrical release in the United Kingdom is set for 10 March 2023.
Plot
Five women are stalked by an unknown being who has ties with Christopher Robin after he has left his friends from the woods for college. That's it.
Why It Makes You Wanna Say "Oh, Bother"
NOTE: It's possible the movie (and every film from the TCU) was made for a joke.
- Addressing the elephant in the room: Much like Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Banana Splits Movie, and Velma, the idea of a Winnie The Pooh horror film was an abysmal one. This is another problem for The Mean One, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, the latter two of which are set to be made by the same director, but more on him a little later.
- For starters, Winnie the Pooh was established as a family-friendly childhood icon who is friendly but dim-witted, but not here. Here, he's a murderous, blood-thirsty beast out for blood. Even Jim Cummings, The current voice actor of Winnie the Pooh from the Disney franchise with the same name (except Playdate with Winnie the Pooh), hated this film; in an interview, he described it as "'disgusting"... and it shows. To make matters worse, it has been confirmed that two more films will be turned into horror movies, which are Peter Pan and Bambi. And we are coming to the bottom of the iceberg here: This movie ended up with a sequel!
- Additionally, the characters of Rabbit, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger don't appear here. Owl, Eeyore, and Rabbit are only mentioned in the opening, while Kanga, Roo, and Tigger are left out.
- The reasoning for this above was that since the first Winnie the Pooh book entered the public domain in 2022, it became a free-for-all, allowing director Rhys Frake-Waterfield to develop this film. Tigger had not yet entered the public domain until 2024.
- Adding onto that, there was already a more mature take on Winnie the Pooh called Christopher Robin (2018), but that film still kept in the family-friendly element. Both films had a grown-up Christopher Robin, but the 2018 film had a scene of Christopher's father dying, which is shown as a funeral, and a scene where Christopher as a young adult serves in World War 2, despite the lack of soldiers dying, anyone could still tell that the film wanted to be serious.
- Even the Uncle Al YouTube parody of Winnie the Pooh, "Pooh's Gym", managed to capture the same charm while also adding in a bunch of raunchy humor that is more effective than the actual movie.
- For starters, Winnie the Pooh was established as a family-friendly childhood icon who is friendly but dim-witted, but not here. Here, he's a murderous, blood-thirsty beast out for blood. Even Jim Cummings, The current voice actor of Winnie the Pooh from the Disney franchise with the same name (except Playdate with Winnie the Pooh), hated this film; in an interview, he described it as "'disgusting"... and it shows. To make matters worse, it has been confirmed that two more films will be turned into horror movies, which are Peter Pan and Bambi. And we are coming to the bottom of the iceberg here: This movie ended up with a sequel!
- The film's micro-budget of less than $100,000 shows here.
- While tolerable for a low-budget film, the special effects still look cheap.
- The filming also took ten days, a very short time for a film of this scale. This film is like a Dhar Mann film that is rushed out for a holiday release.
- Pooh and Piglet don't even look like a bear or pig, respectively, and instead look more like men wearing Pooh and Piglet masks. They look more like Michael Myers if he gave birth to fraternal twins.
- On the topic of Piglet, he looks more like a boar than a pig.
- None of the characters, aside from Christopher Robin are worth rooting as they are so forgettable that viewers would forget their names after the credits roll. They can be summed up as a lesbian couple, a female protagonist who seemingly is set up as the final girl but dies (more on that later...), a popular girl, and a nerdy girl.
- Bizarre soundtrack that at times feels like it is better suited for an action-comedy, not a horror film. It's clear that the filmmakers either used songs from the public domain or composed by someone who doesn't know how to do horror films well.
- Speaking of horror, aside from the opening scene, it relies on jump scares that can be telegraphed.
- Terrible acting that makes it feel that the filmmakers took random people on the street and had them in the movie. Nikolai Leon as Christopher Robin is the only one who seems to be trying here. Unlike David Howard Thornton (who at least tried his best as The Grinch from "The Mean One" despite the low budget), Craig David Dowsett and Chris Cordell do not give good performances as Winnie the Pooh and Piglet and act more like bland versions of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees without their respective charms.
- Along with that, characters make stupid decisions, like bringing a gun to fight Pooh and Piglet with only ONE bullet. They don't bring more rounds from a revolver that they could reload for six shots, only one.
- Aside from its premise, nothing is interesting about this film; all audiences can hear about the film are five friends going to a cabin for vacation while being stalked by a killer, and they can correctly guess the plot. Speaking of which, much like The Mean One, the plot itself is nothing special. It is just another run-of-the-mill slasher horror plot only adding Winnie the Pooh and Piglet because the book went into the public domain. You could replace Winnie the Pooh and Piglet with random serial killers and nothing will change. Sound familar?
- The plot follows a predictable slasher formula with no innovative elements or surprising twists, making the story feel clichéd and uninspired.
- The ending is abrupt. Christopher Robin flees just as Pooh kills the last girl and the film ends there. In fact, at the credits, there is a teaser in MCU style in which Winnie the Pooh will return, and considering the film's tiny budget and massive attention thanks to its premise, a follow-up will definitely happen.
- The amount of negative criticism it got on release pretty much shows that Frake-Waterfield only made this film for attention and didn't care for the criticism it got. He even said in an interview that he "wanted to ruin everyone's childhood."
Qualities That Are Bloody Good
- This film can give you a good laugh if you like "so bad it's good movies".
- The opening scene is surprisingly great. The opening animation looks well-made for a low-budget film and is admittedly terrifying in several shots.
- As mentioned before, Christopher Robin is the only character that’s likable and is worth caring for.
- As mentioned before, Nikolai Leon tries his best as Christopher Robin.
- As mentioned above a part of the 2nd problem area, the special effects, despite being cheap in the 2nd problem area, are tolerable.
- Some of the special effects look pretty great like the honey on Pooh. It's certainly much better than some bigger-budget movies like Marvel nowadays, along with the Ai Winnie-the-Pooh (2023).
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 3% of 37 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2.00/10. The website's consensus reads, "Oh, bother." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 16 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".
Christian Zilko of IndieWire scored the film a grade of C+, criticizing the film's screenplay as an incoherent mess as well as the film's low production values. Awarding the film a similar score, Luke Thompson of the AV Club offered similar criticism towards the cheap production values and lack of a coherent story, while also noting that the film fulfills its promise of a slasher film based on a beloved children's book.
Dennis Harvey of Variety was highly critical of the film for its lack of humor, poor acting, and incoherent screenplay, summarizing that the film "fail[ed] to meet even the most basic expectations set up by its conceptual gimmick". In his review for Rue Morgue, Michael Gingold felt that the film lacked any sort of wit or imagination to successfully implement upon its premise; Gingold additionally pointed out the "drab" cinematography, absence of characterization for its title villain, and messy production only served to make the film easily forgettable. Rating the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, Nick Allen from RogerEbert.com wrote that it failed as both a comedy and a horror film, noting the poorly lit scenes in the film made it hard to decipher what was happening on screen while echoing other critics' sentiments on the writing and lack of interesting characters.
Awards
This movie was nominated for five Razzies at the 44th Golden Raspberry Awards and won all five, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, and Worst Screen Couple[1].
Videos
Trailer
Reviews
Trivia
- The film was made because Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022.
- The film was banned in Hong Kong under the national security law due to Winnie the Pooh being banned in Mainland China.
- A Miami teacher showed a fourth grade class Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.[2]
References
Comments
- Mature
- Bad media
- Obscure films
- 2020s films
- Controversial films
- British films
- Banned films
- Boring films
- Box office hits that received negative feedback
- Animal films
- Gross-out films
- Low-budget films
- Cash grabs
- Terrible grasp on the source material
- Bad films
- Horror films
- Based on books
- List of films considered the worst
- Razzie Awards Worst Picture winners
- Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel winners
- Worst Screenplay winners
- Edgy films
- Edgy media
- Cult films
- Twisted Childhood Universe films
- Disrespecting the dead