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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
Screenplay byMatt Leslie
Story by
  • Rhys Frake-Waterfield
  • Matt Leslie
Based on
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyVince Knight
Edited by
  • Dan Allen
  • Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Music byAndrew Scott Bell
Production
companies
  • ITN Distribution
  • Jagged Edge Productions
Distributed byAltitude Film Distribution
Release dates
  • 18 March 2024 (2024-03-18) (London)
  • 26 March 2024 (2024-03-26) (United States)
Running time
94 minutes[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$500,000[2]
Box office$7.6 million[3][4]

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 retelling 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 on 26 March 2024. Many critics considered the film to be an improvement over its predecessor. It grossed $7.5 million worldwide on a budget of $500,000. A sequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3, is scheduled to be released in 2026.

Plot

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After narrowly surviving Winnie-the-Pooh's and Piglet's killing spree,[b] Christopher Robin flees from the Hundred Acre Wood and returns to his childhood town of Ashdown to seek 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", and a film adaptation based on the murders is released, damaging Christopher's reputation in Ashdown.[a] Few people actually believe in Christopher's story, which includes his childhood friends Lexy, Finn, and Aaron, his parents Alan and Daphne, and his younger sister Bunny. Now an outcast, Christopher has nightmares about Pooh and goes to his hypnotherapist Mary Darling to deal with a trauma when his twin brother Billy was kidnapped several years ago during their birthday party and was never seen again.

Meanwhile, in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh and Piglet are forced to hide with fellow creatures Tigger and Owl when their home is burned down. After they slaughter three university students in a recreational vehicle, Owl tries to convince Pooh to attack Ashdown instead of waiting for more people to come to the woods. Some hunters, led by Aaron, ambush the creatures and kill Piglet as revenge for the students' death. Pooh kills them and reconsiders Owl's proposal; Aaron survives and returns to Ashdown.

Due to the town's negative backlash, Christopher loses his job as a doctor at the local hospital and returns with Mary to undergo further hypnotherapy. When Aaron arrives at the hospital for treatment, Christopher suspects the attack was done by Pooh, which is confirmed when he asks Aaron what happened. He also encounters hospital janitor Cavendish, whom he recognizes as the man who kidnapped Billy, and confronts him in his house. Cavendish reveals that he worked for Dr. Arthur Gallup, a scientist who employed him to kidnap children—among them Billy—around Ashdown for experiments with animal genes in exchange for settling his debts. The children became animal-human hybrids with enhanced healing factors, whom Gallup killed out of fear and buried in the Hundred Acre Wood. Cavendish subsequently murdered Gallup, learning the children resurrected and dug themselves out of their graves. Cavendish ends up committing suicide out of guilt while Christopher attempts to warn the entire town about the creatures' inminent attack, but faces ridicule and skepticism.

As night falls, Pooh, Tigger, and Owl embark on a rampage throughout Ashdown and kill several residents on the way, including Finn. Pooh personally kills Alan and Daphne and attacks Lexy, but she survives the ordeal. The creatures then arrive at a rave party in a warehouse and slaughter all the partygoers. Christopher rushes to the warehouse, where he shoots Tigger, and learns Bunny was kidnapped. He returns to the Hundred Acre Wood and fights Pooh, who easily subdues him as they stumble across Billy's own grave. Christopher calls Pooh, revealed to be Billy, by his real name. Pooh tries to remember his childhood but accuses Christopher of purposely harming the creatures through abandonment, deeming him responsible for Eeyore's death years prior.[b]

Lexy intervenes and stalls Pooh long enough for Christopher to kill him with an axe. CCTV footage from the creatures' killing spree on Ashdown is passed to the police, who found Bunny unharmed, and Christopher is subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Owl and Tigger, having survived, recover the corpses of Pooh and Piglet. While the two of them regenerate, Owl promises that they will find a way to get their revenge on Christopher once and for all.

Cast

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Production

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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".[8] In September 2023, teaser images were released showing the addition of the new character Owl.[9] Principal photography also concluded that month.[10] The film features a new cast and new character designs, and takes place in the town of Ashdown rather than the Hundred Acre Wood.[11] Additionally, the character Tigger, who was absent from the first film, appears since going in the public domain in January 2024.[5][12] The film's screenplay was written by Matt Leslie.[12]

The film was originally reported to have a budget five times larger than its predecessor;[13] it would later be confirmed that the budget had increased to ten times larger than the first film.[14] 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.[11] In 2023, it was revealed that Frake-Waterfield intended to have Pooh wield a chainsaw as a weapon in the film,[15] and that the film would feature over thirty deaths.[14] The film takes inspiration from Terrifier 2.[16] Winnie-the-Pooh's prosthetics in the film cost over $20,000 compared to the $770 spent on the first film's costume.[10]

Release

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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 Canada by Fathom Events on 26 March 2024 and was released in the United Kingdom by Altitude Film Distribution on 7 June 2024.[17][1] The film was released on Amazon Prime Video on 26 June 2024.[18]

Reception

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Box office

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Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 grossed $533,144 in the United States and Canada, and over $7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $7.6 million.[19]

Critical response

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 46% of 41 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.6/10. 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."[20] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 27 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[21]

Luke Thompson of The A.V. 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."[22] IGN's Matt Donato gave it a score of 6/10, comparing its approach to that of Terrifier 2 and writing, "It boasts a nastier midnight-movie appeal, radical practical effects, and a brisk 90-minute runtime. It's a shaky first step for Frake-Waterfield's proposed 'Poohniverse' concept – but it's a step in the right direction."[23]

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."[24] The Daily Beast's Nick Schager said the film "boasts a bigger budget, higher production values, and an entirely new cast. Alas, when it comes to the things that matter most—like writing, directing, and acting—it's as chintzy and inept as its predecessor."[25]

Future

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Sequel

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On 28 March 2024, two days after the film's release, it was announced that a third film was being developed.[26]

Shared universe and other projects

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Main article: The Twisted Childhood Universe

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.[27][28][29] 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.[30] In January 2024, a third film, Pinocchio: Unstrung, based on The Adventures of Pinocchio, was announced as part of the TCU.[31] 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.[32]

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,Jiminy Cricket and the Mad Hatter.[33]

Frake-Waterfield also expressed interest in making films about Thor, the Norse god of thunder,[34] as well as copyrighted franchises such as Teletubbies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Powerpuff Girls.[35][36]

Notes

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  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).

References

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  1. ^ a b "Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (18)". BBFC. 29 April 2024. Archived from the original on 1 May 2024. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
  2. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey 2's New Images Show A Closer Look At Christopher Robin & Terrifying Pooh". Screen Rant. 5 January 2024. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  3. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 — Financial Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on 29 March 2024. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  4. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". BoxOfficeMojo. Archived from the original on 29 March 2024. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  5. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 13 September 2023. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  6. ^ a b Füge, Jonathan (12 September 2023). "Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 New Images Reveal Terrifying Take On Tigger". MovieWeb. Archived from the original on 26 September 2023. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  7. ^ Yossman, K. J. (8 September 2023). "Shakespeare in Love Star Simon Callow Joins Cast of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (Exclusive)". Variety. Archived from the original on 9 September 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  8. ^ Korngut, Josh (1 June 2022). "'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Director Reveals One of Its Nastiest Kill Scenes [Exclusive Interview]". Dread Central. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  9. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 8 September 2023. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  10. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 3 November 2023. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  11. ^ a b Ritman, Alex (8 September 2023). "'Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey' Sequel First-Look Images Revealed (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 13 September 2023. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  12. ^ a b Vejvoda, Jim (5 February 2024). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 Exclusive Trailer and Poster". IGN. Archived from the original on 5 February 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  13. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 18 February 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 15 January 2024. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  15. ^ Lang, Brad (15 August 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Sequel Will Give Pooh Bear a Chainsaw". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on 15 August 2023. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  16. ^ Hamman, Cody (31 January 2023). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey sequel is drawing inspiration from Terrifier 2". JoBlo. Archived from the original on 7 December 2023. Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  17. ^ Squires, John (29 February 2024). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey II Coming to Theaters in March from Fathom Events". Bloody Disgusting. Archived from the original on 29 February 2024. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  18. ^ Squires, John (12 June 2024). "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey II Available at Home This Month". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
  19. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  20. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 26 June 2024. Edit this at Wikidata
  21. ^ "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
  22. ^ Thompson, Luke Y. (23 March 2024). "Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2 review". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  23. ^ Donato, Matt (27 March 2024). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 Review". IGN. Archived from the original on 15 April 2024. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  24. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  25. ^ Schager, Nick (27 March 2024). "'Winnie-the-Pooh 2' Is a Honey Pot Full of Horrible Ideas". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 5 April 2024. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  26. ^ Ritman, Alex (28 March 2024). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 Confirmed (Exclusive)". Variety. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  27. ^ Kim, Mat (2 November 2022). "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey Director Is Preparing a Peter Pan Horror Movie Too". IGN. Archived from the original on 3 January 2023. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  28. ^ Fuge, Jonathan (2 November 2022). "Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare Coming from the Makers of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey". MovieWeb. Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  29. ^ Fuge, Jonathan (25 November 2022). "Bambi Horror Movie to Transform the Disney Character Into a Vicious Killing Machine". MovieWeb. Archived from the original on 25 November 2022. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  30. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  31. ^ Squires, John (17 January 2024). "Public Domain Horror Universe Expanding With Pinocchio: Unstrung [Exclusive First Look]". Bloody Disgusting. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
  32. ^ "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Team Unveils First Look at Pinocchio Horror Film". 17 January 2024. Archived from the original on 19 January 2024. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
  33. ^ 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. Archived from the original on 18 March 2024. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  34. ^ 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.
  35. ^ 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.
  36. ^ "'Blood and Honey' Creators Reveal Idea for Powerpuff Girls Horror Movie (Exclusive)". 17 February 2023. Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
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