PLOT: After Christopher Robin abandons them for college, Pooh and Piglet embark on a bloody rampage as they search for a new source of food.
REVIEW: A group of high school students left my showing of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey after about thirty minutes. So that should tell you the level of quality we’re dealing with here. Even a group of cackling teenagers didn’t care for this nonsensical horror tale. When Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain, I knew we would be in for some really bad adaptations but I really didn’t expect the horror world to take to it so quickly. I guess that makes me blissfully ignorant because not only did they take to it, but they did it with the least amount of money possible. And boy does it show.
I don’t want this entire review to be negative, so I want to focus on some positives first. There are times where Blood and Honey looks really good. I was actually shocked at some of the beautiful shots that they were able to pull off. There’s also a wonderful animated sequence that opens the movie. It’s not anything advanced but I really enjoyed the aesthetic. Almost tricks you into thinking the film is going to be of higher quality than what we get. But even those positives have caveats. With every nice shot is one that you can’t tell what the hell is going on. Blacks are crushing and make it almost impossible to make out detail in night scenes.
Then there was the sound design/music. It could have easily just been my theater but this was so poorly mixed that the bass would buzz like pure static. It was easily the loudest part of the movie and would even sometimes precede jump-scare moments. This just added to the very shoddy production which is full of mistakes. Keep an eye on the credit sequence where you can see certain visual elements awkwardly fade in and out. If this didn’t clash with everything else going on in the story, then it’d be a much more entertaining time. Because I wanted to enjoy the bad. There was just no joy to be had.
Even the kills are unexciting and dull. I figured that if they were to do anything right, it would be the kills. Why else would you take some popular IP and turn it into a horror movie? There must be some kind of grand concept that inspired production right? Sadly no, every death is boring and over in a flash. The most baffling aspect of the film is that it doesn’t even seem like the filmmakers want you to have fun with it. The characters are constantly going through trauma and crying. The schlockiness feels non-existent at points. It has more in common with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre than anything else.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is easily one of the worst films I’ve seen in theaters. The one thing that kept going through my head during the screening was “Why?” When there are so many original stories to tell and even interesting stories to tell with Pooh and his band of characters, why do this? Why create something that lacks any kind of creativity and doesn’t even try for fun? I love movies that are so bad they’re good but this isn’t that. This is someone trying to make a quick buck and it shows in every facet. Your money is better spent on a film that actually has some passion behind it. When the credits rolled, the person next to me said something that feels like the perfect way to encapsulate this movie: “That sucked.”
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is IN SELECT THEATERS FEBRUARY 15TH, 2023.