Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

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Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRhys Frake-Waterfield
Written byMatt Leslie
Based on
Winnie-the-Pooh
by
Produced by
  • Scott Jeffrey
  • Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Starring
CinematographyVince Knight
Edited by
  • Dan Allen
  • Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Music byAndrew Scott Bell
Production
company
Jagged Edge Productions
Distributed byITN Distribution
Release dates
  • 18 March 2024 (2024-03-18) (London)
  • 26 March 2024 (2024-03-26) (United States and United Kingdom)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$670,778 [1][2]

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (stylised as Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II) is a 2024 British independent slasher film directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and written by Matt Leslie. It is the second installment of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) and a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), which serves as a horror reimagining of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books. The film stars Scott Chambers as Christopher Robin, and Ryan Oliva as the titular character, with Tallulah Evans, Teresa Banham, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Alec Newman, and Simon Callow in supporting roles. It follows Pooh as he embarks on a murderous rampage through Christopher Robin's childhood town to seek revenge on him for revealing his existence to the world.

Following the success of Blood and Honey, director Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in a sequel that, eventually, was greenlit in November 2022. The film utilizes metafictional and film within a film elements as Chambers, Oliva, and Eddy McKenzie replace original cast members Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett, and Chris Cordell in the roles of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet, respectively.[a]

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 premiered in London on 18 March 2024 and was theatrically released in the United States and the United Kingdom on 26 March 2024. The film received mixed reviews from critics, although it was considered an improvement over its predecessor. A sequel is in development.

Plot

Christopher Robin flees from the Hundred Acre Wood after surviving Winnie-the-Pooh's and Piglet's killing spree.[b] He returns to his childhood town of Ashdown to seek for help; the corpses of Maria and her friends are recovered from the woods, but Christopher is believed to be responsible.

The incident is dubbed as the "Hundred Acre Massacre", with a film adaptation based on the murders being released, which damages Christopher's reputation in Ashdown.[a] Now an outcast of the town, Christopher has nightmares about Pooh and goes to his hypnotherapist Samantha to deal with a childhood trauma when his twin brother Billy was kidnapped and never seen again.

Meanwhile, in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh, Piglet, and fellow creatures Tigger and Owl, are forced to hide due to a few people who believe in Christopher's story. After they slaughter three university students in a recreational vehicle, Owl convinces Pooh to attack Ashdown instead of simply waiting for more people to come to the woods. When some hunters ambush the creatures and fatally shoot Piglet, Pooh kills them in retaliation and reconsiders Owl's proposal.

Christopher loses his job as a doctor and returns to undergo further hypnotherapy with Samantha. He learns that only a hunter survived and was hospitalized. Christopher also meets Cavendish, the hospital's janitor, and confronts him about the creatures. Cavendish reveals that he worked for Dr. Arthur Gallup, a scientist who forced him to kidnap children around Ashdown for experiments with animal genes. The children did not survive and were buried in the Hundred Acre Wood, where they came back as half-animal, half-human hybrids with an enhanced healing factor. When Cavendish also admits that Billy was among the victims and was resurrected as Pooh, he commits suicide out of guilt.

Christopher warns the town about the creatures' imminent attack, but faces ridicule and skepticism. Pooh, Tigger, and Owl embark on a murderous rampage through Ashdown and kill several residents on the way, including Christopher's best friend Finn. Pooh personally kills Christopher's parents Alan and Daphne and kidnaps his younger sister Helen, nicknamed Bunny, while Christopher's girlfriend Lexy is also attacked but survives. The creatures arrive to a rave party at a warehouse and slaughter all the partygoers. Christopher and Lexy kill Tigger and learn that Bunny was kidnapped. They return to the Hundred Acre Wood and fight Pooh, who easily subdues them both. When Christopher calls Pooh by his real name, Billy, he tries to remember his childhood but accuses Christopher of abandoning the creatures, deeming him responsible for Eeyore's death years prior.[b]

Christopher is forced to kill Pooh with an axe before reuniting with Lexy and Bunny. Footage from the creatures' killing spree on Ashdown is passed to the police, and Christopher is cleared of all wrongdoing. Owl, having survived, recovers the bodies of Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet, and promises to find a way to revive them with the help of some old friends.[c]

Cast

Additionally, Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett, and Chris Cordell appear as Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet, respectively, in archive footage from Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Cameo appearances of Bambi, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio as drawings tease their upcoming individual films in the end credits.

Production

In a June 2022 interview with Josh Korngut of Dread Central, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in creating a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, and stated that he wants to "ramp it up even more and go even crazier and go even more extreme".[6] In September 2023, teaser images were released showing the addition of the new character Owl.[7] Principal photography also concluded that month.[8] The film features a new cast and new character designs, and takes place in the town of Ashdown rather than the Hundred Acre Wood.[9] Additionally, the character Tigger, who was absent from the first film, appears since going in the public domain in January 2024.[3][10] It was written by Matt Leslie.[10]

The film was originally reported to have a budget five times larger than its predecessor;[11] it would later be confirmed that the budget had increased to ten times larger than the first film.[12] Shaune Harrison, who previously worked on productions such as World War Z, the Harry Potter franchise, and Game of Thrones, was the film's creature and gore designer, while Paula Anne Booker leads the special effects.[9] In 2023, it was revealed that Frake-Waterfield intended to have Pooh wield a chainsaw as a weapon in the film,[13] and that the film would feature over 30 deaths.[12] The film takes inspiration from Terrifier 2.[14] Winnie-the-Pooh's prosthetics in the film cost over $20,000 compared to the $770 spent on the first film's costume.[8]

Release

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 premiered at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, London, on 18 March 2024. It was theatrically released in the United States and the United Kingdom by Fathom Events on 26 March 2024.[15]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 52% of 23 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 represents an improvement over the original in most respects, although the Poohniverse remains a place made for hardcore slasher fans."[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on five critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[17]

Luke Thompson of AV Club gave the film a positive review, writing "This is cinema at its most punk rock—a raucous, unpolished, cheap, sacred-cow shredding middle finger to the mainstream with just enough raw talent inside to keep it from being dismissable."[18] Meanwhile, Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave the film a negative review, criticizing the screenplay and direction. He concluded his review by writing "Somewhere up in drive-in-theater heaven, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ed Wood are smiling, even if Frake-Waterfield makes them look like Scorsese and Spielberg."[19]

Future

In November 2022, 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.[20][21][22] In February 2023, Frake-Waterfield announced that the various projects take place in the Twisted Childhood Universe, sharing continuity as a franchise. The filmmaker further stated that Jagged Edge Productions intends to eventually have crossovers featuring all of the characters.[23] In January 2024, a third film, Pinocchio: Unstrung, based on The Adventures of Pinocchio, was announced as part of the TCU.[24] Pinocchio: Unstrung was referenced at the end of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2; while other teases to the expanded universe and future projects were displayed through drawings during the end credits.[25]

In March 2024, the series' first crossover film titled Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble was revealed, with Scott Chambers confirmed to be reprising his role as Christopher Robin as well as Roxanne McKee returning as Xana from Bambi: The Reckoning, along with additional horror iterations of fairytale characters such as Sleeping Beauty, the Talking Cricket and the Mad Hatter.[26]

Frake-Waterfield also expressed interest in making films about Thor, the Norse god of thunder,[27] as well as copyrighted franchises such as Teletubbies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Powerpuff Girls.[28][29]

On 28 March 2024, two days after release, it was announced that a third film was being developed.[30]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) is presented as a film adaptation based on the "Hundred Acre Massacre" that took place before the events of Blood and Honey 2. Although the events of Blood and Honey actually happened in-universe, it is presented as a film within a film, which explains the redesigns for Christopher, Pooh and Piglet.
  2. ^ a b As depicted in Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023).
  3. ^ Identified off-screen as Rabbit, Kanga, and Roo.

References

  1. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 — Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  2. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". BoxOfficeMojo. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e Plant, Logan (11 September 2023). "Exclusive: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2's First Look at Tigger Revealed". IGN. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  4. ^ Yossman, K. J. (8 September 2023). "Shakespeare in Love Star Simon Callow Joins Cast of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (Exclusive)". Variety. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  5. ^ a b Füge, Jonathan (12 September 2023). "Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 New Images Reveal Terrifying Take On Tigger". MovieWeb. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  6. ^ Korngut, Josh (1 June 2022). "'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Director Reveals One of Its Nastiest Kill Scenes [Exclusive Interview]". Dread Central. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  7. ^ Squires, John (8 September 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 – First Images from Slasher Sequel Bring That Yellow Bastard Back to Life". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  8. ^ a b Ritman, Alex (3 November 2023). "AFM: Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 Duo Unveils First Terrifying Close-Up of New-Look Bear (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  9. ^ a b Ritman, Alex (8 September 2023). "'Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Sequel First-Look Images Revealed (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  10. ^ a b Vejvoda, Jim (5 February 2024). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 Exclusive Trailer and Poster". IGN. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  11. ^ February 16, Clark Collis; EST, 2023 at 03:06 PM. "'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' director says sequel will have at least 5 times the budget". EW.com. Retrieved 11 October 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ a b Yossman, K. J. (20 October 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Director Hopes Fourth Graders Not Ruined by Surprise Screening, Teases Sequel Budget and Deaths". Variety. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  13. ^ Lang, Brad (15 August 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Sequel Will Give Pooh Bear a Chainsaw". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  14. ^ Hamman, Cody (31 January 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey sequel is drawing inspiration from Terrifier 2". JoBlo. Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  15. ^ Squires, John (29 February 2024). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey II Coming to Theaters in March from Fathom Events". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  16. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 29 March 2024. Edit this at Wikidata
  17. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  18. ^ Thompson, Luke Y. (23 March 2024). "Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2 review". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  19. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (27 March 2024). "'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2' Review: This One Has a 'Story,' but Beneath the Slasher Violence Its Only Horror Is What It Does to IP". Variety. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  20. ^ Kim, Mat (2 November 2022). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey Director Is Preparing a Peter Pan Horror Movie Too". IGN. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  21. ^ Fuge, Jonathan (2 November 2022). "Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare Coming from the Makers of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey". MovieWeb. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  22. ^ Fuge, Jonathan (25 November 2022). "Bambi Horror Movie to Transform the Disney Character Into a Vicious Killing Machine". MovieWeb. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  23. ^ Ritman, Alex (8 February 2023). "'Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Director Plans to Create Low-Budget "Twisted" Childhood Horror Universe With Bambi, Peter Pan and More". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  24. ^ Squires, John (17 January 2024). "Public Domain Horror Universe Expanding With Pinocchio: Unstrung [Exclusive First Look]". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
  25. ^ "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Team Unveils First Look at Pinocchio Horror Film". 17 January 2024.
  26. ^ Ritman, Alex (18 March 2024). "Welcome to the Poohniverse: 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Team to Unite Pooh, Bambi, Tinkerbell and More in Low-Budget Horror Crossover (Exclusive)". Variety. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  27. ^ Perry, Spencer. "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Director Teases Horror Versions of Peter Pan, Thor". Comicbook.com. Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  28. ^ Phillips, Terry (18 February 2023). "Blood & Honey Director Wants To Make TMNT & Teletubbies Horror Movies". ScreenRant. Archived from the original on 20 February 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
  29. ^ "'Blood and Honey' Creators Reveal Idea for Powerpuff Girls Horror Movie (Exclusive)". 17 February 2023.
  30. ^ Ritman, Alex (28 March 2024). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 Confirmed (Exclusive)". Variety. Retrieved 28 March 2024.

External links

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