Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey

If there are any "real" directors reading this; there is clearly an interest in a Winnie the Pooh horror. This isn't it.

I don't even know where to start in expressing the sheer disappointment of this "film". What's worse, it doesn't appear to be an issue about the low budget - more the direction. We have all seen recently what can actually be achieved with a small budget. It would appear this "director' got very lucky with an interesting idea, but has no idea how to actually make a film.

Our cinema was about half full, but after 45 minutes I would guess half of those had left. Not because it was scary or gory or too intense - but, my guess, and along with us, bored out their minds. By about an hour in the rest of the audience had broken into conversation. We left with about 15 minutes left as just couldn't take another second.

On the way out I asked for a refund (never done that before lol). The guy behind the counter laughed and said a couple others had said the same thing.

So what's wrong with it? Well, first and foremost its not scary. It's also not funny or clever or interesting or well shot. It drags on and on with super bad acting, awful music, bad editing, bad camera work, dreadful lighting, terrible dialogue, super cheap looking costumes.... and I could probably go on.

Sometimes bad films can be a cheesy, campy good time but the absolute killer here is - it's boring.

The world of horror has some absolutely fantastic up and coming directors and its a shame someone with some talent didn't have this idea and execute it properly. But as Winnie is now public domain, maybe someone will.

And, somebody needs to ban these people from ever making another film. And, I want my money back.

As I was writing this review I came across a review in the Daily Beast by Nick Schager (full credit to him for the below and the full article can be found online/socials) that puts it so much more eloquently than I have been trying to:

"Frake-Waterfield exhibits minimal skill at framing a unique or unnerving shot, effectively transitioning between scenes, or eliciting jolts though canny cuts or audio cues. He's not helped by Vince Knight's muddy, shaky cinematography and Andrew Scott Bell's comatose score, which loses steam at precisely the moments that is should be punctuating the action.

Its difficult to fault the musicians for their lethargy, however, in light of the omnipresent amateurishness on display, almost none of which can be blamed on production constraints; though its clear that Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey was made on a shoestring budget, its failings have to do with a simple lack of talent both in front of and behind the camera.

In the weeks leading up to Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey's premiere, the writer/director has expounded on his plans to film a series of additional children's lit horror shows, with Bambi and Peter Pan next in line for the grim dark treatment. On the basis of this fiasco, however, that feels like so much wishful thinking. For all of Pooh's kills, the greatest casualty of his rampage may just be Frake-Waterfield's career prospects".

For a predominantly female cast, I could tell the writer was a male before I even double checked. He must thing all women are complete idiots. Not a single one ever had a plan, all they did was give half-hearted screams and run very, very badly. Of course in his defense, Christopher Robin wasn't much better. It was a snooze fest.

I'd had relatively decent hopes for this. The premise was original and the opening animation was lovely. Another reviewer said if they'd made a short from there, it would've been amazing and I agree. But they fleshed out no plot, spent zero on the costuming of the iconic leads (I'm serious, hitting up a Dollar Tree would've been more affective) and left everything with no resolution at the end, presumably to make room for a sequel.

So, I gave it three stars for the start and for encouraging others to use their talents on works now in the public domain. Hopefully something more interesting and exciting will come from it.

Say, for a $100K production budget, Rhys Frake-Waterfield made a B-movie and as a result for the recent demand in independent slasher films caused by Terrifier 2 + it's a horror retelling of iconic characters, it becomes box office success. But nonetheless with no one's surprise it's absolute garbage. In my opinion with that kind of budget it's not an easy task to make a film with a decent quality. I'm impressed by the animated sequence they created for this movie and it was kinda cool. But even the decent production quality, somewhat good cinematography, visual tone, set pieces and locations overshadowed by it's very poorly written and atrocious screenplay with a bad ending, slow and tiring pacing, weak performances, lazy direction and an amateur cast with subpar acting abilities.

This movie is not a finished product, not even close. This needed AT LEAST a month or two longer in the editing room because it is a mess! I'm not even talking about the terrible story or acting because I knew I was getting that regardless, which is no problem for me as long as there's some carnage. I'm talking about the atrocious sound mixing/editing, the abrupt cuts and transitions, and nauseating camera work. The basics of filmmaking! Whenever someone is getting murdered, you can't even tell what is going on because the camera work is so amateurish and shoddy. It's almost like the camera operator was having a seizure whenever they were supposed to film a kill.

This movie had a $100,000 budget, yet they showed almost no gore/make-up FX when someone would die. If you're filming a low-budget B horror movie, people are going for the kills and not much else, therefore you better be pumping 80% of your budget into the "horror" aspect of the movie and show some people getting slaughtered.

Terrifier 1 had a $25,000 (a fraction of Blood and Honey's budget), yet showed every kill in grisly detail and people LOVED it! Then they made a sequel for $250,000 and made 13 million off it. I'm not sure where the $100,000 budget of this movie went, but it was most definitely not the kills, editing or acting. Maybe Pooh and Piglet's costumes were each $50,000 a piece, and if so the costume designer definitely pocketed that money.

The only reason I'm not giving this a 1 is because I like the concept of taking a fictional character from the public domain and putting a B horror twist on it. Though a good concept, the execution could not have been much worse. This should not have left editing room let alone released IN THEATERS! The distribution company should be held accountable. It's like video game developers releasing unfinished games. Trash.

2/10.

Some horror films are so bad that they're good. This one is just bad.

Nothing is good. The acting, the writing, the plot, the complete and utter lack of even so much as an ATTEMPT at character development, was a complete mess. It's not one of those horrors that are "so bad it's good", it's just painful to sit through from beginning to end. Full of plot holes, completely lacking a protagonist, full of characters who are uninteresting and un-likeable, I can't imagine how anybody could enjoy this movie.

Everyone involved should just quit the movie industry. Their lack of talent, judgement or consideration for their audience shows no compassion or remorse.