Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

2023 - 2 - 17

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Image courtesy of "Inverse"

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Review: A Hundred Acres Far ... (Inverse)

Horror is inherently a transgressive genre, with scares often achieved by taking the “safe” and rendering it “unsafe.” It makes sense that one of the ...

While the film’s music works well, the overall sound mix is a bit of a mess. The script is also full of a variety of dialogue that inches close to memorably bad camp but, yet again, stops short. It’s clear throughout that the movie’s a microbudget feature, but the “blood” of Blood and Honey is in ample supply: by and large the gore effects look good, and similarly the mask construction for Pooh and Piglet works. Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey isn’t as good as the 1958 classic, but that doesn’t stop it from delivering the promise of at least some of the premise in the movie’s brief runtime. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is an almost perfect set-up for a horror tale. [perennial trends](https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/m3gan-review-blumhouse) is specifically the transmogrification of childhood elements into sources of horror, from dangerous dolls (Child’s Play, Annabelle) and imaginary friends (Daniel Isn’t Real), to even mothers (The Babadook) and children themselves (Children of the Corn, Sinister).

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Image courtesy of "Roger Ebert"

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 (

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Image courtesy of "TIME"

How the New Winnie-the-Pooh Horror Movie <em>Blood and Honey ... (TIME)

The controversial new Winnie-the-Pooh horror movie 'Blood and Honey' is the product of the original Pooh story entering the public domain.

[Rotten Tomatoes score](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/winnie_the_pooh_blood_and_honey) currently sitting at 8%. [Disney](https://time.com/5790677/bob-iger-successor-predictions-chapek-failures/) still owns the rights to the animated cartoon versions of Pooh Bear and company, A.A. [reportedly made for under $100,000](https://variety.com/2023/film/global/winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey-box-office-micro-budget-1235515255/), has also garnered a significant amount of online attention and already [earned $1 million in Mexico](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/winnie-the-pooh-blood-honey-mexico-box-office-1235318616/) since its Jan. For instance, the Pooh of Blood and Honey is wearing a red flannel button-up rather than the red t-shirt of Disney Pooh fame, and popular characters like Tigger don’t appear in the film. “The bizarrely uninspired horror disaster will make you wish you kept your money instead.” “We knew there was this line between that, and we knew what their copyright was and what they’ve done. So we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 version of it.” Five years later, Christopher Robin returns to the woods with his wife Mary (Paula Coiz) in hopes of introducing her to his childhood friends and proving they weren’t imaginary. Shepard’s drawings of Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin, all became fair game for any and all types of adaptations following the end of the 95-year copyright protection term. The Pooh and Piglet of Blood and Honey are a far cry from the beloved characters created by English author A.A. Forced to fend for themselves, the creatures of the Hundred Acre Wood begin eating each other (R.I.P. “I’ve had death threats.

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Image courtesy of "USA TODAY"

Oh, bother: 5 gnarly 'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' moments ... (USA TODAY)

Thanks, public domain! Pooh and Piglet become horror villains in 'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.' The 5 worst moments that'll ruin your childhood.

[the public domain](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/09/01/winnie-pooh-blood-and-honey-horror-movie/7961872001/), author A.A. [How can Winnie the Pooh be made a killer? And thank goodness Disney still owns the copyright to Tigger, introduced in 1928 – for now.) The porcine one is Pooh’s enforcer and hog-ties one of the vacationing women so Pooh can crush her head with a car (the old bear has given up the ways of man but still drives) and kills another by smacking his trusty sledgehammer into her face. Of course, they’re no match for the hard-to-kill Pooh with his machete and a squadron of bees. Chris runs away, Pooh repeatedly stabs her body and the movie suddenly ends, saving some nightmare fuel for the eventual sequel. Pooh puts a blade to Maria’s throat but Christopher begs for forgiveness and to let her go. He returned five years after leaving to introduce his new wife Mary (Paula Coiz) to the animal crew, but instead they were attacked. The public domain, explained](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/09/01/winnie-pooh-blood-and-honey-horror-movie/7961872001/) One of the group, Tina (May Kelly), gets lost trying to locate the place. 23](https://www.fathomevents.com/events/Winnie-the-Pooh-Blood-and-Honey)). (Owl and Rabbit are nowhere to be found after the opening, by the way. Things take a dark turn, though, when Christopher goes to college, starvation sets in during winter and Pooh, Piglet, Owl and Rabbit kill and eat their buddy Eeyore.

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Image courtesy of "IGN"

Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey Review - IGN (IGN)

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is noteworthy only for its name, as it turns out that blending slasher blood with Pooh's honey together is like oil and ...

Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. Children of the Corn, written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, opens in theaters on March 3, 2023, and will be available on Demand and digital on March 21, 2023.](/videos/children-of-the-corn-2023-official-red-band-trailer) Based on the short story by Stephen King, Children of the Corn is a chilling new re-telling for a whole new generation. Milne's beloved Winnie the Pooh children’s stories, doom and gloom is a theme that starts on the right foot. Check out the launch trailer for another look at Lara Croft in action.Tomb Raider Reloaded allows players to jump back into the boots of groundbreaking adventurer Lara Croft in an action-filled quest to obtain the ancient Scion artifact, clearing ever-changing rooms filled with new and familiar enemies as well as hazardous traps and puzzles. Nobody seems comfortable in their positions – actors underselling reactions, photographers blurring the frame, directors mixing tones like oil and vinegar – and the resulting movie is soured well beyond any sweet goodwill Pooh's honey-dripping scowl allows. Yes, the kills are approvably vicious, and they’re just about the only thing that makes this movie remotely watchable. Christopher Robin still exists, Winnie the Pooh’s crew still inhabits the 100 Acre Wood, but everything goes south when Christopher leaves for college – a smart play on Pooh seeing Christopher’s maturation as abandonment and creating a vengeful motive for his Jason Voorhees-style murder spree. [The Mean One](/articles/the-mean-one-review) or Ahockalypse, which adapted The Grinch and a Goon-style hockey story, respectively, to weak and largely unfunny horror comedies. A whimsical then wicked pencil-doodled introduction sets the grim fairytale tone in the right way and we're ready to get ridiculous… The same goes for lesser digital effects that spew animated red chunks, which naturally don’t look nearly as good as the practical guts. Continuity and composure are not this film’s friends.

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

Oh, bother: the Winnie the Pooh slasher movie is a bloody mess (The Guardian)

In the new film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, AA Milne's beloved storybook bear embarks upon a murderous rampage, driven to homicidal madness by ...

[Bambi](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/28/prepare-for-bambi-on-rabies-beloved-fawn-to-become-killer-in-new-horror) and [Peter Pan](https://collider.com/peter-pan-horror-movie-adaptation-rhys-frake-waterfield/)), they will have an advantage in not needing to tiptoe around the most well-known version of the concept. (Any trash connoisseur will tell you that it’s a fine line between so-bad-it’s-good and just bad.) It’s a primal human impulse to corrupt our totems of juvenile innocence, a natural part of shedding the naivete of youth for the obscenity of the grown-up world. All of this is to say that even when purloining someone else’s idea to make a quick-and-dirty buck, expertise and effort make a difference. As explained by a prologue in crude stick-figure animation, a cold winter in the Hundred Acre Wood left Pooh and the rest of the gang with no choice but to cannibalize melancholic donkey Eeyore for survival, which marked a nightmarish surrender of all civility for a return to their basest beastly natures. A warped Pooh and Piglet, the latter wielding the savage force of 30 to 50 feral hogs, loose their unslakable hunger for carnage on a cadre of young hotties unaware that their weekend getaway to the woods is about to uphold horror-movie tradition in grisly fashion. Pooh has been made over by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, now a hulking, silent humanoid in a dirty pair of overalls and lumberjack flannel.

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Image courtesy of "Den of Geek"

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey Director Wants to Make Evil ... (Den of Geek)

When Superman enters the public domain in 2033, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey director Rhys Frake-Waterfield may be ready to put his own dark spin on the ...

[Superman](https://www.denofgeek.com/superman) and [Batman](https://www.denofgeek.com/batman)!” the director admits to Den of Geek. But all of these stories happen through the control of DC Comics and its parent-company Warner Bros., which either approves official versions of bad Superman or forces competitors to create their own legally-distinct imitators. There’s no doubt he could do the same with a nasty Superman story, whether or not Warner Bros.—or anyone else—likes it. Anything that wasn’t in the story is still property of Warner Bros. And, of course, Zack Snyder couldn’t resist making Superman bad, first when he was resurrected and then in the “Knightmare” epilogue to [Zack Snyder’s Justice League](https://www.denofgeek.com/justice-league). [Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey-horror-movie-exists/) offers a compelling look at the future of storytelling. Of course evil Superman stories have been done before. And in 10 years, one of the most important characters from Disney’s biggest competitor become public domain, the Man of Steel himself. Frake-Waterfield has already indicated that he plans to keep working with public domain characters, including not only Pooh but also Bambi and Peter Pan. Each year, new characters join in the public domain, including Mickey Mouse next year. For decades, the Walt Disney Corporation has controlled stories about Pooh and the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood, overtaking in the public consciousness even depictions by the characters’ creators A.A.

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Image courtesy of "Rolling Stone"

'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Is a Torture-Porn Travesty (Rolling Stone)

'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' is the horror movie nobody asked for, and only exists thanks to its source material entering the public domain.

When the screaming is over, you realize that the grotesque Pooh and Piglet masks are the only memorable part of what you’ve experienced, as if the movie was a thin conceit to show off a Comic-Con couples costume. Pooh and a tusked, ogreish Piglet then abduct and imprison Robin in a treehouse where Pooh whips him with the detachable tail that belonged to Eeyore, presumably deceased as well. Before the credits mercifully arrive, we are treated to the deaths of brand-new characters who stumble into the fray, including one man with the sorriest fake British accent ever attempted in the name of cinema, and Christopher Robin begging Pooh to stop his homicidal rampage. If so, we are barely given the opportunity to imagine one: Blood and Honey is heavy on the splatter and hostile to plot, with its chief antagonist quickly becoming the kind of indestructible goliath who operates as a drab imitation of Blood and Honey is a hundred-acre wasteland, a witless gory bore, and in the end, you’re just depressed that anyone spent time working on it. [horror](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/horror/) [film](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/movies/) that makes feral killers out of the cuddly [animals](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/animals/) from beloved children’s books, you hope for some entertaining grindhouse slasher.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Review: Willy-Nilly Killy Old Bear (The New York Times)

He's ruthless and occasionally machete-wielding like Jason Voorhees. He's seen surrounded by bees like Candyman. And he's got an appetite for, ...

When Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) abandons the creatures to go to college, their resentment toward him curdles into bloodlust, and Pooh and Piglet decide to terrorize a group of five nearly identical-looking and underwritten young women (lead by Maria Taylor) vacationing in a rental home nearby. [into the public domain](https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/01/08/winnie-pooh-public-domain/). He’s ruthless and occasionally machete-wielding like Jason Voorhees.

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Image courtesy of "Collider.com"

Why Tigger Isn't in 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' (Collider.com)

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey director Rhys Frake-Waterfield explains why Pooh and Piglet are in the film, but not Tigger.

Here’s what Frake-Waterfield said when asked for familiar Winnie the Pooh elements he was not allowed to include when making Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey: So there are a lot of these elements you just need to be really, really careful with because if you make a mistake there and you make the film, and if I had accidentally put Tigger in the film or got him to say ‘oh, bother’ a lot, I would be really encroaching on their copyright and their branding then, and then that would have probably caused a lot of issues with getting this released.” Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey follows what happens after Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) abandons his Hundred Acre Wood friends.

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Image courtesy of "Variety"

How 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Composer Scored Horror ... (Variety)

"Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" composer on using beehives to score slasher horror film.

For the scene where Piglet attacks a character with a sledgehammer in water, Bell had the idea of “drums underwater.” He explains, “I had these drums and I played them. When Bell proposed the idea to director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, he said, “That sounds expensive.” So instead of hiring a choir, Bell sang all the parts himself. There was also honeycomb inside the violin, right up to the F holes.” He adds, “It might have actually changed the sound of the violin.” He explains, “I emailed him and said, ‘I’m doing this movie. Once, he even placed a beehive inside a violin to see if the bees would populate it. This would become the integral instrument Bell used in the film’s score.

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Image courtesy of "Mashable"

Oh, bother: Everything you need to know about 'Winnie-the-Pooh ... (Mashable)

A review and explainer of "Winne-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey," a low-budget horror movie written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield after the character ...

With all of the weird possibilities they could have exploited and funny avenues they could have gone down with this material, why am I watching a group of women be exploited and humiliated? He's a producer on [Bambi: The Reckoning](https://mashable.com/article/bambi-the-reckoning-live-action), which sounds like Pooh Redux: The baby deer mutates and goes on a killing spree. [supposedly got a budget boost(Opens in a new tab)](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey-horror-viral-release-1235255373/) to re-shoot some stuff once the film's trailer went viral, and you can see where the money went: straight into that wood chipper! There are two moments of note that do riff on the formal Pooh lore we all know and love, referencing 1) Eeyore's aforementioned detachable tail and 2) a swarm of killer bees beckoned at Pooh's command. The ugly nihilism and misogyny of those movies is slathered all over Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey in great, sick-making dollops. The movies that Frake-Waterfield has mentioned in interviews as his inspirations will probably give you all of the information you need on what to expect here. This just happens to be a cabin in the Hundred Acre Woods, unfortunately for them. Within just a few short weeks of Pooh's lapse into public domain life, the crafty writer/director was already in post-production on his low-budget retelling, which sees Pooh and the Gang going feral after Christopher Robin heads off to college. 95 is the magic number in today's tale, because that's how many years it takes for a work of art to enter the public domain. Generation after generation of children and their children's children steeped in the almighty lore of the Hundred Acre Wood and its cheerful (save Eeyore) inhabitants. A full 95 years of kiddie indoctrination on the concepts of kindness and civility and really, really loving honey. "Winnie-the-Pooh" was introduced to the world in the year 1924 in a collection of Milne's poetry called When We Were Very Young.

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