Horror Movie Review: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who also wrote the screenplay, and based off the Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey stars Chris Cordell, Amber Doig-Thorne, Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, and Danielle Ronald.

We’re no strangers to production companies Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios and the work they put out. So, we were quite surprised to see such buzz surrounding the release of this movie. Audiences seemed to be wowed by the idea of a horror movie surrounding the beloved bear. It was baffling. Which isn’t to say that Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios put out non-stop rubbish but they have put out more bad movies than good.

Where does Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey sit?

Beginning strongly with narration and illustrations, we learn about Christopher Robbin, 100 Acre Woods and his woodland friends. When winter came, Christopher abandoned his friends who, starving to death, turned on each other and grew to hate Christopher and mankind in general. Vowing to never speak again, Pooh and Piglet now haunt the 100 Acre Woods, killing anyone who comes their way.

Which is quite unfortunate for an adult Christopher Robbin who has returned to 100 Acre Woods to convince his girlfriend that his memories of it are real. She is murdered by the pairing of Pooh and Piglet, who capture Christopher. We will come back to him later in the movie, as will Pooh and Piglet, who have fresh meat to hunt. Namely a group of friends who are spending some time together in a cabin near Hundred Acre Woods.

It’s here that Blood and Honey slips into much more familiar slasher territory. The friends hunted and murdered by the blood-thirsty beasts in gory and violent fashion. Can anyone stop the rampage of Winnie the Pooh?

That’s a line you never thought you’d read, right? Well, expect a lot more horrors to follow suit as the Winnie the Pooh stories has fallen out of copyright. It’s open season on these animals!

Blood and Honey is a film that progressively gets worse as it goes on even if a game cast do their best to wring as much as possible out of the bland script. It’s this film’s biggest problem, the story just isn’t imaginative enough. In fact, outside of the opening, it plays out more like a pair of killers in cheap and near unrecognisable Pooh and Piglet masks.

Not only that, the characters are extremely one-note with only Maria Taylor having something of note to do. Even then, her past traumatic stalker experience feels more like padding than a relevant and powerful arc.

Where Blood and Honey does excel is with a combination of visual shots, the woodland given a really desolate and dark feel, and the gore. It’s not afraid to spill the blood and expose the guts. Impressively too, for such a low-budget offering. It’s not enough to make this recommended watch as most will be bored by it. It’s a shame as with the talent involved, a more creative script would have made this far more notable. Instead, within six months, everyone will have forgotten this exists.