Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a 2023 British independent slasher film edited, produced, written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. It serves as a horror reimagining to 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 and bloodthirsty murderers, as they terrorise a group of young university women and Christopher Robin when he returns to the Hundred Acre Wood many years later after leaving for college.
The film was first announced in May 2022, when it drew widespread attention due to its premise involving a character that was a beloved childhood icon, and it was met with divided reactions. There was even controversy surrounding the film among both the general public and the Winnie-the-Pooh fan community, with Frake-Waterfield claiming that he and the other members on the film's production received death threats and petitions for the film to be cancelled. 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 on a $100,000 budget in 10 days in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England, which serves as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the stories.
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 January 26, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 15, 2023, and in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2023. The film received largely negative reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing $5.2 million worldwide against its small budget. A sequel and a shared universe are currently in development.
Plot
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. However, Christopher left after he entered college. Without him around to feed them, and with the arrival of winter, the creatures went into starvation. In order to survive, they settled on killing and eating Eeyore, which developed in them a hatred for humanity. They vowed to return to their feral instincts and never speak again.
Five years later, Christopher, now an adult, returns to the Hundred Acre Wood, accompanied by his wife Mary, but finds the place in a desolate state. The couple is ambushed by Piglet, who fatally strangles Mary. Pooh and Piglet then drag Christopher into the woods, showing him Eeyore's skeletal remains, and burning Mary's corpse.
Sometime later, university students Maria, Jessica, Alice, Zoe, and Lara rent a cabin in the Hundred Acre Wood so she can overcome a traumatic stalking experience. Tina, another friend, gets lost en route, and Pooh grinds her up with a woodchipper. In his treehouse, Pooh, who has imprisoned Christopher, reminisces over their childhood and breaks down, brutally whipping him with Eeyore's tail and showering Christopher in Mary's blood.
As night falls, Pooh and Piglet ambush Lara and slowly drive a car over her head. Piglet enters the cabin, killing Zoe. Maria and Jessica observe the duo taking Alice away and decide to rescue her. In Pooh's treehouse, they find and free Christopher, who directs them to another hostage, Charlene. Seeking revenge after Piglet mutilated her face, Charlene summons Piglet to kill him, but Piglet mauls her to death. Pooh chases Maria and Jessica into the woods, but Alice stays behind and bludgeons Piglet with his own sledgehammer, apparently fatally. Pooh impales Alice with a knife through her open mouth.
On the road, Maria and Jessica seek help from a group of local men passing by but Pooh easily kills them. Maria tries to run him over with their pick-up truck but crashes. Upon awakening, she witnesses Pooh decapitate Jessica. He almost kills Maria until Christopher appears, driving a car and crushing Pooh between the two vehicles.
Pooh frees himself and holds Maria at knifepoint. Christopher pleads for Pooh to release her, promising to stay with him and apologizing. Pooh breaks his vow of silence and says "You left" before slashing Maria's throat. After she dies in his arms, a traumatised Christopher flees, realising that his former friend is now beyond help, while Pooh repeatedly stabs Maria's corpse.
Cast
Production
Development
On May 24, 2022, Josh Korngut of Dread Central reported that a Winnie-the-Pooh-based horror film adaptation was in development. The characters' rights had been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 1966 and, while Disney retains exclusive rights to the depictions of these characters from their own franchise, the first Winnie-the-Pooh book went into the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2022. After the copyright lapsed, Rhys Frake-Waterfield began development on Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey the same year. Speaking to Variety, Frake-Waterfield described the plot as both Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet turning into homicidal maniacs after Christopher Robin leaves them for college. He stated: The masks used for Pooh and Piglet in the film were created by the American prosthetic-mask manufacturing company Immortal Masks. On February 16, 2023, Frake-Waterfield explained in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment that the first draft of the film was meant to be more close to the original source material. However, The Walt Disney Company still retained the exclusive rights to the depictions of these characters from their own franchise, so Waterfield had to scrap the original script and rewrote it to avoid any legal trouble.
Filming
Principal photography for Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey began in April 2022, with filming taking place in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England over a period of 10 days. Jagged Edge Productions produced the film in collaboration with ITN Studios. Frake-Waterfield did outfit Pooh with a red shirt, but was careful to avoid other iconic elements from Disney's depictions that could pose a copyright issue.
After the increased popularity of the film, ITN gave the film an increased budget, leading to several days of reshoots. This would lead to the film being the most expensive film Waterfield ever directed and the most expensive film produced by ITN, with a budget of under $100,000.
Music
In July 2022, American composer Andrew Scott Bell was announced as a provider for the score. On July 14, 2022, Bell uploaded a video to YouTube titled "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood, Honey, and Violins" that documented how he drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco, with his manager Mike Rosen, to collect a honeycomb-filled violin from an experimental luthier to compose the film's soundtrack. In an interview with Dread Central, Bell explained how he got involved with the production of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey upon hearing about the film after it went viral upon the announcement. He said:Back in late May, a day or so before the film went massively viral, I started seeing some online chatter about a Winnie-the-Pooh horror movie. I remember looking it up on IMDb and finding the director Rhys Frake-Waterfield on Instagram where his story had a screenshot of a person's comment saying something to the effect of "your movie is ruining our childhoods". His reaction was, "that's what I'm trying to do, ruin everyone's childhood".
Release
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was originally planned to be released in October 2022, but the increased publicity and reshoots motivated the change to a 2023 theatrical release. The film premiered in Mexico on January 26, 2023, and was released by Cinemex. It was originally set to be released for a one-night event across cinemas in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada in February 2023, with Fathom Events and Altitude Film Distribution acquiring the rights to release it in their respective countries. In January 2023, it was announced that the film had been given an expanded theatrical release starting on February 15 in the United States. The film was then released in the United Kingdom on 10 March 2023. For one week, the film was re-released in cinemas in the United States on 17 March 2023. A Hong Kong release was canceled due to purported technical glitches, but the film may have been censored due to Internet memes comparing Winnie-the-Pooh to CCP general secretary Xi Jinping; Christopher Robin was banned in 2018 for that reason.
Marketing
After the film's announcement, Salon writer Kelly McClure wrote the film is "a perfect example of the wrong that could come from a creative work slipping into public domain." She continued, calling the film a "horrific take" on Winnie-the-Pooh, also stating "you've got the makings of a dark and twisted cult classic." Jon Mendelsohn, writing for Collider, called the film images "nightmare fuel" and the concept "extremely bizarre" while noting "the internet is freaking out." Rotem Rusak, writing for Nerdist, wrote, "Seeing the iconic bear reimagined as a nightmarish slasher monster speaks to a delightfully imaginative spirit that really inspires us." Justin Carter of Gizmodo wrote:
Katarina Feder of Artnet wrote, "...you can't buy publicity like the kind they've had and something tells me that this indie passion project will find its funding, bringing to life the director's unique ideas about murdering women in bikinis."
Home media
In the United Kingdom, a collector's edition was released on Blu-ray on April 5, 2023. A more basic release came out on April 14, 2023. It got a digital release on Amazon Prime in the United States on April 11, 2023. On June 2, 2023, it got a widespread release across many streaming platforms such as iTunes and Vudu.
Reception
Box office
As of April 19, 2023, Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey has grossed $2 million in the United States and Canada, and $3 million in other territories, including over $1 million in Mexico, for a worldwide total of $5.2 million.
Critical response
Christian Zilko of IndieWire scored the film a grade C+, panning the film's screenplay, but felt that the film "punches above its weight" in the craftsmanship of its kills. Awarding the film a similar score, Luke Thompson of The A.V. Club offered similar criticism towards the cheap production values and lack of a coherent story, while also noting that the film fulfills its promise of a slasher film based on a beloved children's book. Polygons 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.
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". In his review for Rue Morgue, Michael Gingold 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. 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.
Future
Sequel
In June 2022, Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in creating a sequel, and stated that he wants to "ramp it up even more and go even crazier and go even more extreme". In November 2022, he announced that a sequel, currently titled Winnie-the-Pooh 2, was in development with him returning as director and writer, on a budget "five times" larger than the previous installment. The sequel is expected to begin filming in late 2023, with an anticipated release date of February 2024. In August 2023, Frake-Waterfield announced that Pooh will use a chainsaw as a weapon in the sequel. That September, Pooh, and Piglet were confirmed to have new designs in teaser images, with the new characters Owl and Tigger also confirmed to appear.
Shared universe and other projects
Alongside the announcement of a sequel, two other horror films were announced: Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare based on Bambi, a Life in the Woods and Peter and Wendy respectively. In February 2023, Frake-Waterfield announced that the various projects take place in the same shared continuity franchise, while Jagged Edge Productions intends to eventually have crossovers featuring the characters.
Frake-Waterfield also expressed interest in making films about Thor, the Norse god of thunder, as well as copyrighted franchises such as Teletubbies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
See also
Other horror films based on children's franchises:
The Banana Splits Movie
The Mean One
References
External links
2023 films
2023 horror films
2023 independent films
2020s British films
2020s English-language films
2020s slasher films
2020s exploitation films
British exploitation films
British independent films
British slasher films
Cultural depictions of Christopher Robin Milne
Films about bears
Films about pigs
Films directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Films shot in East Sussex
Films shot in England
Horror films based on children's franchises
Winnie-the-Pooh films
Works banned in China