Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey (2023)
[Reader disclaimer: there will be spoilers discussed. This piece also contains material of a graphic nature].
I often find myself in the film section of my local supermarket, browsing the most atrocious-looking b-movies you've never heard of. And, even more often, I feel obligated to buy and review the most wretched ones, so we can at least laugh and say hey, someone watched it.
Unfortunately for me, the recent addition to my ever-growing list of films was Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey (2023), a surprisingly gory little feature laced with the most misogyny I've seen in a horror since Terrifier 2 (2022): yes, the beloved A.A. Milne character from our childhoods has his own horror film and yes, it is as bad as you're imagining.
We begin with a primitive rendition of the original lore - Christopher Robin with his furry friends in the 100 Acre Woods, playing and laughing like the stories before him...except these creatures aren't actually enchanted, whimsical animals. In fact, they're moreso like anthropomorphic monsters, simply described as "hybrids" (though we're only treated to Pooh and Piglet, so I have to assume the budget couldn't meet the demand for the entirety of the gang).
After Robin grows up, he moves away to pursue a career and family, leaving Pooh Bear and friends to fend for themselves: sadly, they'd grown accustomed to handouts from their favourite human - with no food left and winter closing in, they resort to cannibalism and Eeyore is the first to kick the bucket. Eeyore got off lightly, really: at least he didn't have to sit through the rest of the non-sensical plot, if you can even call it that.
Fast forward to present day, Christopher Robin returns with his fiancee (Mary) to show her his childhood friends, only to discover that his little, pastoral haven has become a dingy, rundown, almost hick-coded campsite, wherein Piglet now likes to torture people and Pooh gorges himself on lube-like honey and blood. Mary gets her face smashed in, Robin is kidnapped and beaten with what appears to be Eeyore's dismembered tail and everything is terrible.
Surprisingly, Robin's fate is the b-plot of this movie: the main focus is on a group of women, who have come to a cottage near the woods as a getaway retreat, following the protagonist's recent ordeal with a stalker. I'd like to tell you that this group of women are driven, survivalist, empowered characters. I'd like to tell you that. Instead, we have a lesbian couple who have no chemistry, a 'nerd' archetype who puts Shelley Duvall's shrieking to shame and a few others who I honestly cannot remember the names of...which probably indicates just how memorable their characters are.
As you have probably already guessed, the film dives into the massacre of all the female characters, killed off in gruesome ways one by one. The graphic depiction of women being slaughtered is not new to the genre but this film is arguably so sexist in its killings, as (spoiler alert) Christopher Robin is somehow the only one to survive the ordeal, despite being the catalyst for Pooh's cruel, vindictive nature in the first place.
Despite its interesting premise, this film fails to deliver on all fronts: it's not nostalgic for fans, it's not entertaining for horror movie-goers, it's not even particularly interesting for people going in with no prior knowledge of the inhabitants of the 100 Acre Woods. Perhaps this is one to stick on when you're absolutely blasted at the next Halloween party but even then, I don't think inebriation will save this one.
Overall rating: 3/10
- K
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