By Seth Lukas Hynes
Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
Starring Scott Chambers, Tallulah Evans and Ryan Oliva
Rated R18+
3.75/5
The sequel to the atrocious Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey, Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 defies expectations by being a genuinely good horror movie.
The only survivor of the Hundred Acre Massacre, Christopher Robin (Scott Chambers) tries to put the incident behind him, but the savage Pooh (Ryan Oliva) and his animal friends seek bloody vengeance on the town of Ashdown.
In my year-end worst countdown for 2023, I described Blood and Honey 1 as shockingly incompetent on nearly every level, but Blood and Honey 2 is leagues better and shows substantial
maturity from director Rhys Frake-Waterfield.
The dialogue and performances are overall solid, and Chambers is a poignant, committed lead as Christopher Robin.
Blood and Honey 2’s pacing is somewhat disjointed but still features plenty of eerie, well-directed sequences, including a chilling monologue about genetic experimentation, and inventive brutality to satisfy the gorehounds.
Unlike the blunt, humourless first film, Blood and Honey 2 has tongue-in-cheek fun with its absurd premise, but also addresses the theme of trauma with some tact, unlike the problematic original.
Frake-Waterfield even amusingly frames the first film as in-universe schlock based on the Hundred Acre Massacre (not unlike the films-within-films gimmick of the Human Centipede series).
Here I go again with my weird comparisons: Blood and Honey 2 is the opposite of Beau is Afraid, which also appeared on last year’s worst list.
With Beau is Afraid, Ari Aster got carried away with a larger budget and made a bloated movie, but with Blood and Honey 2, Frake-Waterfield refined his craft and went bigger and better.
A huge upgrade from the first film, Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is a silly but grisly, disturbing, well-acted and thoroughly enjoyable horror movie, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.
