Film Review - "Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey"

My first review in three months and it has to be this.

Amend Copyright Laws. Some properties need to stay out of the dark depths of the public domain, and to prove my point here is Exhibit A...

Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey

Directed by One Sick Bastard

Starring People Who Need To Learn Their Actions Have Consequences

So in January of 2022, Winnie the Pooh (The original books by A.A. Milne, not Disney's version) entered public domain, and immediately British filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield went "Hey let me ruin that."

In this dark corner of the public-domain, Hundred-Acre Multiverse, Pooh and friends are not cute stuffed-animals but weird half-human creatures. Young Christopher Robin befriends them and takes care of them for many years, until he must leave for college. Winter arrives, the creatures are facing starvation, and in an act of desperation, Pooh decides they must-hold on, let me check my notes....ok-they must eat Eeyore in order to survive.

This gruesome acts turns them feral, and they renounce their humanity...we're off to a great start. Years later, Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) returns to the woods with his wife Mary (Paula Coiz), but things are not what they remember. Pooh (Craig David Dowsett) and Piglet (Chris Cordell) are now bloodthirsty murderers, and for about an hour and twenty-four minutes set out to terrorize Christopher and a group of college girls renting a cabin near the Hundred Acre Wood.

Films have the power to make us cheer, make us laugh, and make us cry. Not very often, at least in my experience, do I come across a film that makes me physically ill. Blood & Honey is filled to the top of the honey pot with gore, and if you're like me, there's only so much of it you can take in a single film. I'm sure that there must be some fanbase out there for this sub-genre of horror but I'm not part of it. It all feels especially grotesque when you attach the name "Winnie the Pooh" to it.

There's really no reason to call these characters Pooh and Piglet. They're just regular monsters with special names. Now I will play fair, and say you could, in some way, make a good Winnie the Pooh horror film. I am not sure that is what Waterfield set out to do here. He only seems intent to shock his audience while abusing the power of the public domain. Eventually though the shock wears off, it just starts getting stupid, and you want it to stop. 

There is hardly any plot whatsoever. Pretty much the entire premise loses any steam and novelty before the opening title appears. The group of college girls take the center focus away from Christopher Robin for most of the film, and they're all uninteresting cannon fodder for Pooh and Piglet. The main girl, Maria (Maria Taylor) has a scene where she recalls her backstory-I mean, experience dealing with a dangerous stalker. This has nothing to do with the rest of the film. Neither she or the other four, yes four, add any value to the story. They have no narrative connections or parallels to Pooh, or Christopher Robin, they're just victims. Red shirts in Star Trek. Keeping the focus on Christopher Robin could have helped this film. A little. I mean at least then, there would've at least been something of a story. I don't know call me crazy, but in the age of A Quiet Place, the 2020 Invisible Man, and the works of Jordan Peele I like my horror films to do something a little bit more than the barest minimum. 

Not sure what else there is to say. The cast isn't anything special. The cinematography leaves no impact. Everybody makes the cliche horror film mistakes ("Hey everybody! Give up your cellphones!" "Oh my God all I can do is sit and scream while my loved one is in mortal danger!" "Oh hey I just recently remembered I have a gun thirty minutes into this $h!t"). The way the "plot" progresses they definitely banked on this becoming a franchise (and damn it all they're getting it). Maybe I can say something good about this film...um, the animation in the opening prologue is unique? 

I'm sorry this is one of my shorter and less-coherent reviews, but let's be honest it's what this film deserves. There's no novelty or joy to be had in watching Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey. It's grotesque, cliche', and a waste of time. This could've worked. This could've been like a satirical horror-comedy that dived deep into the psychology and themes of the original books by A.A. Milne. Instead they went for "Haha children's characters in public domain let's f**k around with them". 

This isn't filmmaking. This is trolling at a torturous level, and the saddest part is the masses fell for it. There will be sequels, and there will be other characters turned into ravenous monsters, like Bambi, Cinderella, and The Grinch (Look them up, I'm not doing it for you. I won't be responsible for your nightmares.). You have to wonder if they this was a scheme like The Producers, you know? "Under the right circumstances, a bad movie could make more money than a good one"? 

Anyway, has anybody ever seen The Tigger Movie?