Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

2023 - 2 - 17

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Variety"

'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Review: An Un-Bear-Able Horror (Variety)

A.A. Milne's entry into the public domain is commemorated by Rhys Frake-Waterfield's 'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,' an inept horror pseudo-spoof.

This backstory is accompanied by some very simple line-drawing animation, which is underwhelming but turns out to be the best thing “Blood and Honey” has to offer. If the sound mix is often poor enough to bury dialogue in music, that may be to the dialogue’s benefit. Indeed, a narrator starts off explaining that young Christopher Robin befriended a group of “crossbreeds, abominations” (as opposed to nursery toys) as a wee lad, keeping them tame and well-fed from the family larder. The first (and, let’s hope, worst) consequence of that development is “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,” a rock-bottom joint that fails to meet even the most basic expectations set up by its conceptual gimmick. The characters and gentle whimsy of Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood are so familiar to multiple generations that one might forget it all springs from just two books, “Winnie-the-Pooh” (1926) and “The House at Pooh Corner” (1928), plus some poems. This movie could just as well be called “Michael Myers-Type Unstoppable Killing Machine And His More Texas Chainsaw-ish Pal Run Amok.” The only reason we associate it with Milne’s universe is because the film keeps verbally telling us to do so.

How the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey Horror Movie Even Exists (Den of Geek)

Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield takes us inside how he came up with (and got away with) Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. He also hints at where he wants to ...

The director already plans to take in “all the feedback and critique” to make his next movies even more effective. For the time being, the director intends to keep following the route of nasty fairytale creatures, and getting a bigger budget to help him do it. “He’s a completely different type of character.” To be sure, the director and his team did occasionally double-check to make sure they were drawing solely from the 1926 book. [Terrifier 2](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-terrifier-2-became-a-gory-cinderella-story/) was a box office hit, which apparently spelled good news for Blood and Honey. Despite working from a budget of less than $100,000, Blood and Honey has made the fast-track from direct-to-streaming to wide theatrical release. The Walt Disney Company still owns the rights to their depiction of Pooh Bear, including the now iconic image of the cuddly fellow in a red shirt sans pants (hence Blood and Honey’s fully clothed Pooh). “My Pooh is a massively different type of character,” Frake-Waterfield explains. However, the character himself was created in 1926 in the children’s book, Winnie-the-Pooh, which is in the public domain as of Jan. Fueled with a hatred of all things human, the duo go on a murder spree that terrorizes a group of teens (played by Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Amber Doig-Thorne, among others) who foolishly decide to party and the Wood. The answer comes down to a quirk of copyright law. The movie stars Craig David Dowsett and Chris Cordell as Pooh and Piglet, who are now all grown up and bent on revenge against Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) after he left them to starve in the Hundred Acre Wood. “I think everybody does.” Indeed, most people would agree with that statement about the guileless toy bear who embarked on imaginary adventures with his fellow plush animals and human pal Christopher Robin.

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Review: Viral Public Domain ... (IndieWire)

In two sentences, Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) manages to silence anyone who complains that we don't produce iconic movie quotes anymore while pretty much ...

Reasonable people can disagree about his use of the term “a lot,” but there’s definitely fun to be had. But regardless of how things play out politically, it’s highly amusing that something as deliberately imbecilic as “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” is destined to become a major event in public domain history. “We spent a lot of time working on it but not a lot of time shooting it. Don’t say you weren’t warned.) The trade-off is that the script makes an enormous amount of what can charitably be described as “narrative compromises” to make all of the violence fit into a world that feels remotely coherent. “Blood and Honey” feels like a throwback to a simpler era of filmmaking. In the same way old women-in-prison movies would blatantly advertise a nude shower scene and knockoff slasher flicks would list the types of dismemberment that they showed on their posters, “Blood and Honey” makes no attempt to hide its simple value proposition.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey movie review (2023) | Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert)

As a horror and a comedy, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey has no rhythm with either, and it's too dim to be worthy of a curious look.

By being finished and distributed, "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey" will already be a win for some (and a sequel has been announced). "Blood and Honey" then lumps her in with other easy targets for easier shocks: the women are as gullible as anyone deeply offended by this movie, and we're meant to laugh at each poor choice these characters make. A sentence I never thought I'd write: Pooh and Piglet proceed to terrorize these women, with a few other victims thrown in, sometimes in a way akin to ritual sacrifice. Take away the Pooh and Piglet stuff, and you have a ho-hum stalker thriller that treats its one-dimensional characters as punchlines for gory scenes its budget can't fully deliver on. The best joke is that you see Pooh's round ears and button-nose in ominous shots where Leatherface or Michael Myers are supposed to be, with red overalls and a rubbery mask that's frozen to a type of honey-suckling grin. This English production, making its way to 1,500 theaters in America this week, aims to take the piss out of one's childhood nostalgia, which is mirrored here by what happens to poor Christopher Robin (

'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Review: Oh (Don't) Bother (Collider.com)

Sometimes when a beloved property ends up in the public domain, you might hear people joke about how now anyone can make a film about that story, ...

It’s almost like Frake-Waterfield isn't attempting to film while running, it’s as if he’s just decided to run alongside Pooh, and who cares what footage is captured in the process? Christopher is taken and held hostage, while Pooh and Piglet set their sights on Maria (Maria Taylor) and her friends, who rent a cottage in the woods to help Maria get over a recent stalking incident. While she doesn't believe Christopher’s childhood tales, she soon does, when the pair are attacked by Pooh Bear (Craig David Dowsett) and Mary is choked to death by Piglet (Chris Cordell). Writer-director (using those terms loosely) Rhys Frake-Waterfield decided to take an idea that could fit within a tweet, and turned it into Blood and Honey, a film that overstays its welcome before the opening credits. [Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey](https://collider.com/where-to-watch-winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey/), a horror take on the adored children's stories. Yet when Christopher left for college, well, things got dark, and the animals didn’t know how to survive without their human companion.

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' is a demented disappointment ... (AZCentral.com)

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' reimagines A.A. Milne's gentle bear as a cannibalistic serial killer. But Rhys Frake-Waterfield's film disappoints.

The lurid humor of a grindhouse movie is missing. And Pooh and Piglet look like two guys in Pooh and Piglet masks. Twitter: [@goodyk](https://twitter.com/goodyk). Facebook: [facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm](https://www.facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm). Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) and his wife Mary (Paula Coiz) are back in the Hundred Acre Wood, looking for Pooh and the other animals. It’s meant as a warning; instead it’s just a reminder of a much better horror movie. Meanwhile Maria (Maria Taylor) is talking to her therapist. Winter comes, there’s no Christopher Robin to bring the animals food and Pooh and Piglet go all Donner Party. In the “Toy Story” franchise this kind of separation was played as heart-rending. Milne’s book (which fell into the public domain in 2022). But the plot is not, and the acting is worse. It’s not the premise.