Movie: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
Production Companies: Jagged Edge Productions, ITN Studios
Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Producers: Scott Jeffrey, Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Scriptwriters: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Main Cast: Craig David Dowsett, Chris Cordell, Amber Doig-Thorne
Release Date: 10 March 2023 (United Kingdom)
Running Time: 1hr 24min
Certificate: 18
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if someone took a wholesome children’s storybook character and turned them into a psychopathic, serial killer? Well, wonder no longer. This film sees beloved childhood character Winnie the Pooh and his minion Piglet embark on a series of unprovoked, gruesome murders with terrible acting, storylines, cinematography, and dialogue, filled with plot holes and characters you’ll forget the names of within five minutes.
Synopsis
The start of the film follows the main storyline of the original books, where Christopher Robin befriends Winnie the Pooh and his friends, and they have lots of fun and adventures. Until Christopher Robin goes away to university, which led to Pooh and his friends not getting any food. The lack of food made them turn feral and ultimately, they ate Eeyore to survive. When Christopher Robin returns from university to visit his friends and introduce them to his fiancé, Pooh and Piglet’s killing spree (and revenge on Christopher Robin) begins.
Analysis
There is a lot to analyse in terms of ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’.
The Narrative and Characters
As I’ve already mentioned, the plot doesn’t have a lot to it regarding the original source material. Sure, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet have become murderous due to turning feral because of lack of food, but besides this, for all we know the killers could have been two grown men- one wearing a pig mask and the other wearing a bear mask, and I would have believed it.
The character names of Pooh, Piglet and Christopher Robin are the same as the books, as well as the location of the Hundred-acre woods, but besides this, there is no other reference to the Winnie-the-Pooh universe- it’s simply two characters attempting to kill several other characters, while Christopher Robin stands still, helpless crying and begging Pooh to stop his murder spree.
Filming Techniques (Cinematography and Sound)
For a movie that was shot in just ten days, this film has been quite successful, but had there been more time put into the production of the film, we might have ended up seeing a much higher quality product.
In the film, some cinematography is just lazy through static shots and pans across the screen (probably due to lack of time), but as I have already mentioned, as the film was made in 10-days, poor cinematography was to be expected.
However, the sound design is actually great for this film. You can tell that there has been time and effort put into post-production in terms of sound design to try and make great jump-scares to suit the horror genre.
Genre
As a horror film, the practical effects are actually of quite a high standard, especially for a ten-day shoot.
All the kills are extremely gruesome (without giving too many spoilers, the most gruesome being the hot tub murder), with lots of blood and somewhat realistic effects to add to the film.
These practical effects along with the sound design have really helped to establish this film as a frightening horror rather than a failed horror that people find comical.
However, the costumes of Pooh and Piglet were really lacking, so it didn’t feel like the killers were a bear and a pig- so we were missing that supernatural, unnatural aspect, therefore the film hasn’t been entirely successful making itself a horror.
Summary
To summarise, this film doesn’t really feel like a Winnie-the-Pooh horror film. It feels more like two men, dressed as animals, going around, and killing helpless victims, with poor cinematography and filming techniques. This just goes to show that just because something can be made, doesn’t mean it should. Or at the very least, wait until there is a decent budget.
However, the film has been greenlit for a sequel set to be released in 2024, which will introduce the characters Owl and Tigger. This sequel is said to have ten times the budget of the first film, so I am genuinely interested to see if the sequel can be seen as an improvement upon the first film.
Overall Rating: 3.5/10 – Poor
Recommendation: No
