Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

A.A. Milne's entry into the public domain is commemorated by Rhys Frake-Waterfield's 'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,' an inept horror pseudo-spoof.

This backstory is accompanied by some very simple line-drawing animation, which is underwhelming but turns out to be the best thing “Blood and Honey” has to offer. If the sound mix is often poor enough to bury dialogue in music, that may be to the dialogue’s benefit. Indeed, a narrator starts off explaining that young Christopher Robin befriended a group of “crossbreeds, abominations” (as opposed to nursery toys) as a wee lad, keeping them tame and well-fed from the family larder. The first (and, let’s hope, worst) consequence of that development is “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,” a rock-bottom joint that fails to meet even the most basic expectations set up by its conceptual gimmick. The characters and gentle whimsy of Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood are so familiar to multiple generations that one might forget it all springs from just two books, “Winnie-the-Pooh” (1926) and “The House at Pooh Corner” (1928), plus some poems. This movie could just as well be called “Michael Myers-Type Unstoppable Killing Machine And His More Texas Chainsaw-ish Pal Run Amok.” The only reason we associate it with Milne’s universe is because the film keeps verbally telling us to do so.

Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield takes us inside how he came up with (and got away with) Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. He also hints at where he wants to ...

The director already plans to take in “all the feedback and critique” to make his next movies even more effective. For the time being, the director intends to keep following the route of nasty fairytale creatures, and getting a bigger budget to help him do it. “He’s a completely different type of character.” To be sure, the director and his team did occasionally double-check to make sure they were drawing solely from the 1926 book. [Terrifier 2](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-terrifier-2-became-a-gory-cinderella-story/) was a box office hit, which apparently spelled good news for Blood and Honey. Despite working from a budget of less than $100,000, Blood and Honey has made the fast-track from direct-to-streaming to wide theatrical release. The Walt Disney Company still owns the rights to their depiction of Pooh Bear, including the now iconic image of the cuddly fellow in a red shirt sans pants (hence Blood and Honey’s fully clothed Pooh). “My Pooh is a massively different type of character,” Frake-Waterfield explains. However, the character himself was created in 1926 in the children’s book, Winnie-the-Pooh, which is in the public domain as of Jan. Fueled with a hatred of all things human, the duo go on a murder spree that terrorizes a group of teens (played by Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Amber Doig-Thorne, among others) who foolishly decide to party and the Wood. The answer comes down to a quirk of copyright law. The movie stars Craig David Dowsett and Chris Cordell as Pooh and Piglet, who are now all grown up and bent on revenge against Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) after he left them to starve in the Hundred Acre Wood. “I think everybody does.” Indeed, most people would agree with that statement about the guileless toy bear who embarked on imaginary adventures with his fellow plush animals and human pal Christopher Robin.

In two sentences, Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) manages to silence anyone who complains that we don't produce iconic movie quotes anymore while pretty much ...

Reasonable people can disagree about his use of the term “a lot,” but there’s definitely fun to be had. But regardless of how things play out politically, it’s highly amusing that something as deliberately imbecilic as “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” is destined to become a major event in public domain history. “We spent a lot of time working on it but not a lot of time shooting it. Don’t say you weren’t warned.) The trade-off is that the script makes an enormous amount of what can charitably be described as “narrative compromises” to make all of the violence fit into a world that feels remotely coherent. “Blood and Honey” feels like a throwback to a simpler era of filmmaking. In the same way old women-in-prison movies would blatantly advertise a nude shower scene and knockoff slasher flicks would list the types of dismemberment that they showed on their posters, “Blood and Honey” makes no attempt to hide its simple value proposition.

"Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey," a new slasher film in which Pooh and Piglet go on a murderous rampage, has apparently angered some fans of the childhood ...

"Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was made on a budget of less than $250,000, according to the AFP. Frake-Waterfield said he originally hoped the film "might do a mini theatrical run in certain areas." and now it's doing all right." A [trailer for the film](https://www.fox9.com/news/watch-winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey-horror-film-trailer) was released in August, showing a group of five women on a cabin trip who cross paths with the sadistic duo, and all hell breaks loose. Once a work enters the public domain it can legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed, or sampled without permission or cost. But food has become scarce after the friends were abandoned by Christopher Robin, who went to college, and things have gone seriously wrong.

The first reactions to the warped, horror retelling of Winnie-the-Pooh are now in. So, was it worth transforming these beloved childhood characters into ...

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey will now receive an expanded theatrical release courtesy of Fathom Events, Altitude Film Distribution, Cineplex Entertainment, and Cinemex, and will screen from Feb. Not everyone who was able to bask in the bloody delights of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey found it scary, but they at least sound like they had a good time. Sadly, not everyone was so enamored with seeing this cherished childhood creations wreaking havoc and killing people, with some first reactions criticizing the mean-spiritedness. [horror](https://movieweb.com/tag/horror/) retelling of Winnie-the-Pooh are now in. So, was it worth transforming these beloved childhood characters into monsters for [Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey](https://movieweb.com/movie/winnie-the-pooh-blood-and-honey/)? And it sounds like that rampage has been a big hit for some.

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 (

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.

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.

Oh bother, indeed. A.A. Milne's classic tale enters the public domain in the form of a horror movie with very little brains—and even less Eeyore.

There’s very little comic relief here, allowing the inherent absurdity of a killer Pooh with arbitrary super powers (that skin-cutting karate chop is seriously random) to do the humorous work. Blood And Honey is smart enough to subvert at least a couple of old slasher tropes, while leaning into two very modern ones. So to say that Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey delivers everything a slasher movie should is higher praise than it used to be. When the boy became a man and went off to college, an unprecedented winter hit the Hundred Acre Wood, causing Pooh to stave off starvation by eating Eeyore and promptly going insane. Resentful at the human who abandoned them, he and Piglet vowed never to speak again, which is sad news for anyone hoping to hear classic Pooh catchphrases after every kill. A glut of copycats watered down the formula, and many of the imitators these days deliver very little exploitation and not enough story to make up for that loss.