After Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain last year, horror filmmakers couldn’t help but take advantage of the opportunity. British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield made a very low budget feature called Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey. The slasher satire got absolutely panned by critics after it screened, resulting in a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 3%. Despite the bad reviews, the movie was watched by a lot of people and it went viral on the internet, resulting in a call for a sequel. The Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 has screened, and it seems like the filmmakers learned from the first one.
Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey was made with a 100,000 dollar budget, which is considered microbudget by many standards. It turns out that the violent campy trailer drew in an audience and the movie ended up taking in over $5 million overall, which is a huge profit. Many didn’t think the film needed a sequel, as people had many thoughts about Blood and Honey that skewed negative. Frake-Waterfield went ahead and made another movie anyways. This ended up being the right call as the film opened with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, and now is currently holding an 80%.
This is great news for horror fans, who may have been excited by the goofy premise of the first movie but were disappointed with the quality of Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey. According to Fangoria, the sequel film almost multiplied its budget from the first film by 10, so this could be credited for the increase in quality. With more money and resources, there was likely a lot more that the filmmakers could do with the material creatively. Also, they possibly listened to the critics to improve on the faults in the first movie.
Winnie the Pooh isn’t the only iconic character that recently entered the public domain, as Steamboat Willie is also now fair game as a horror character. Filmmakers jumped on this opportunity as well, as there is another horror movie in the works starring the Mouse. Hopefully that film learns from Blood and Honey as well, seeing what could go wrong when using a recognizable childhood character in a slasher. If the sequel is any indication, there is room for it to work.
As for the Blood and Honey filmmakers at Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios, they aren’t done with taking full advantage of other characters in the public domain. The studio recently teased an Avengers-team up style film called Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, featuring characters like Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, and Pinocchio. The horror film is set to release in 2025 and Frake-Waterfield is also behind the project. This is objectively a very silly venture, however with the financial success of the first Blood and Honey movie, and the critical reception for the sequel, a hit isn’t completely out of the question.
You can see for yourself if Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is a drastic improvement from the original by checking it out now in select theaters. You can also revisit the original Pooh slasher now with a Peacock subscription. For more information on other scary flicks heading to cinemas and streaming in the near future, make sure to check out our guide to upcoming horror movies.
