Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a 2023 British independent slasher film produced, directed, written, and edited by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. The first installment of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU)[5], it serves as a horror reimagining of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books and stars Craig David Dowsett as the titular character, and Chris Cordell as Piglet, with Amber Doig-Thorne, Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, and Danielle Ronald in supporting roles. It follows Pooh and Piglet, who have become feral murderers, as they terrorise a group of young university women and Christopher Robin when he returns to the Hundred Acre Wood five years after leaving for college.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
Rhys Frake-Waterfield
- Scott Jeffrey
- Rhys Frake-Waterfield
- Craig David Dowsett
- Chris Cordell
- Amber Doig-Thorne
- Nikolai Leon
- Maria Taylor
- Natasha Rose Mills
- Danielle Ronald
Toby Wynn-Davies
Vince Knight
Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Andrew Scott Bell
- Jagged Edge Productions
- ITN Studios
- 26 January 2023 (Mexico)
- 10 March 2023 (United Kingdom)
84 minutes[1]
United Kingdom[1]
English
$50,000[2]
The film was first announced in May 2022, when it drew widespread attention due to its premise involving a character that was a childhood icon, and it was met with divided reactions. It was produced by Jagged Edge Productions in association with ITN Studios and went into development after the 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh book entered the public domain in the United States in January 2022. The film was shot in 10 days in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England, which serves as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was originally set for a nationwide one-night event, but a spike in online popularity expanded it to a major worldwide theatrical release. It premiered in Mexico on 26 January 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on 15 February 2023, and in the United Kingdom on 10 March 2023. The film was panned by critics and received five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. Despite this, the film was a commercial success, grossing $5.2 million worldwide on a mere budget of $50,000. A sequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, was released on 26 March 2024.
Plot[edit]
Years ago, a young Christopher Robin met and befriended a group of anthropomorphic creatures—Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, Piglet, and Winnie-the-Pooh—in the Hundred Acre Wood. After Christopher abandoned them for college to become a doctor, added to the arrival of winter and no food to eat, the starved creatures cannibalized Eeyore and vowed to return to their feral instincts.
Five years later, Christopher, now an adult having graduated from college, returns to the Hundred Acre Wood, accompanied by his fiancée Mary, and finds the place in ruins. At night, the couple are ambushed by Piglet, who strangles Mary to death, before he and Pooh drag Christopher into the woods.
Sometime later, university students Maria, Jessica, Alice, Zoe, Lara, and Tina rent a cabin in the Hundred Acre Wood. Tina, lost in the woods, gets ambushed by Pooh. She hides in a nearby garage but is found and ground up in a wood-chipper. In his treehouse, Pooh reminisces over his childhood with a now-hostage Christopher and breaks down, whipping him with Eeyore's tail and showering him with Mary's blood.
As night falls, Pooh and Piglet ambush the cabin, running Lara's head over with a car. Piglet then kills Zoe with a sledgehammer. Maria and Jessica arrive, watching Alice being abducted. They follow Pooh and eventually rescue Alice. Afterwards, the trio break into Pooh’s treehouse, freeing Christopher from his chains as well as another hostage, Charlene. Charlene explains her plan to get revenge on Piglet, who mutilated her face. She summons Piglet, but he mauls her to death. Pooh chases Maria and Jessica into the woods, but Alice stays behind and ambushes Piglet. After Alice knocks Piglet unconscious with his sledgehammer, Pooh arrives and fatally impales her against a tree with a machete.
On the road, Maria and Jessica seek help from a group of local men passing by, whom Pooh easily slaughters. Maria attempts to run Pooh over with their pick-up truck but crashes, blacking out. Upon awakening, she witnesses Pooh dragging Jessica away, then decapitating her. Christopher appears and crushes Pooh between the truck and his car. Pooh then frees himself, grabbing Maria and holding her at knifepoint. Christopher pleads for Pooh to release her. Pooh, breaking his vow of silence, tells Christopher, “You left,” then immediately slashes Maria’s throat. Seeing that his former friend is now beyond help, Christopher flees the woods as Pooh repeatedly stabs Maria's corpse.
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 3% of 62 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Oh, bother."[35] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 16 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[36]
Christian Zilko of IndieWire scored the film a grade of C+, panning the film's screenplay, but felt that the film "punches above its weight" in the craftsmanship of its kills.[37] Luke Thompson of The A.V. Club criticised the cheap production values and lack of a coherent story, while also noting that the film fulfils its promise of a slasher film based on a beloved children's book.[38] Polygon's Tasha Robinson felt that certain elements such as the gore and inherent grotesqueness of the material worked well, but added that the film's poor dialogue, lack of humour, and connection to its basic source material ruined an interesting premise.[39]
Dennis Harvey of Variety was highly critical of the film for its lack of humour, poor acting, and incoherent screenplay, summarising that the film "fail[ed] to meet even the most basic expectations set up by its conceptual gimmick".[40] Michael Gingold for Rue Morgue 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 characterisation for its title villain, and messy production only served to make the film easily forgettable.[41] 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.[42]
