Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey became an internet sensation when the first teaser of this movie was released online. It was the concept that grabbed people’s attention. The reimagining of iconic Disney characters like Winnie the Pooh and Piglet who were always presented to us in the most sweetest fashion have now turned murderous because Christopher Robin abandoned them in the wild. If I pitched this to a producer, he would be throwing his money at me because of the power of the concept and popularity of these characters guaranteeing box office success. However, this film was not made on a hefty budget. Rather its a small production with no ties to a huge studio. It is not exactly a fan film, a notch above that in terms of production quality. As the months passed by the hype around the film increased.
The film had a brief theatrical release at Fathom Events after which it was confirmed that the film will get a few hundred screens for a one night online release. Then, even that release has expanded to the film being set for nearly a week of shows in even more theaters beginning on February 15th. Now, the film is also releasing internationally in the UK on 10th March 2023. While the film has garnered popularity what it has not been able to garner is critical acclaim. The reviews for the film are concerningly bad. It has a 6% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of 4.2/10 on IMDb. Let’s see why critics bashing this movie.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Reviews Round-Up- Not Worth the Hype?
- Miles Klee (Rolling Stone) – “Blood and Honey is a hundred-acre wasteland, a witless gory bore, and in the end, you’re just depressed that anyone spent time working on it.”
- Kyle Turner (TOP CRITIC) – “It’s not funny enough to have anything clever to say about its gag, and it’s not exciting enough to be a competent horror movie.”
- Jeff Ewing (Inverse) – “It’s a real disappointment that, bad or not, the film is so close to delivering memorable monsters but still lazily refuses to commit to the attempt.”
- Tasha Robinson (Polygon) – “A movie that never gives its killers any reason to exist, or its audience any reason to root for the victims.”
- Luke Y. Thompson (AV Club) – “Marketing alone would have guaranteed this movie a certain percentage of curious eyeballs, but Frake-Waterfield made sure that what genre fans see is everything they expected.”
- William Bibbiani (TheWrap) – “The film feels half-written, and the half we got wasn’t the good half. Characters and storylines pop up out of nowhere, disappear into the ether, and almost all of them turn out to be pointless.”
- Bill Goodykoontz (Arizona Republic) – “It’s all just monotonous splatter. It’s as if Frake-Waterfield expended all his good ideas on the concept, hoping that would be enough.” Original Score: 1/5
- Nick Allen (RogerEbert.com) – “As a horror and a comedy, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey has no rhythm with either, and it’s too dim to be worthy of a curious look.” Original Score: 1.5/4
- Christian Zilko (indieWire) – “The script makes an enormous amount of what can charitably be described as “narrative compromises” to make all of the violence fit into a world that feels remotely coherent.” Original Score: C+
- Dennis Harvey (Variety) – “A rock-bottom joint that fails to meet even the most basic expectations set up by its conceptual gimmick.”
- Nick Schager (The Daily Beast) – “Some of the chintziest and most uninspired exploitation cinema this side of “Sharknado.””
While the overall critics score is 6%, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t any better as it is 35%. However, despite such poor critical reception the film is a box office success which is mainly due to its diminutive budget and interesting concept. The film was reportedly produced on a budget $100k and its opening weekend haul was a solid $750k, recovering its budget just in three days. This is nothing as the first week collections of the film are a notch above the opening weekend as first week collections are $1.58 million.
These numbers might see another bump and if it does, it will only increase the film’s financial success. Just before the film’s released we got the news that a sequel is already on its way and considering the box office success of this one, I think it is clear that this will soon turn into a franchise. I hope that the upcoming film is also high on quality and not only concept.
Check out the Official Trailer for Winnie The Pooh: Blood Honey on YouTube:
The film is directed by Rhys Waterfield and the cast of the film includes Amber Doig-Thorne as Alice, Maria Taylor as Maria, Danielle Ronald as Zoe, Natasha Tosini as Lara, May Kelly as Tina, Paula Coiz as Mary, Natasha Rose Mills as Jess, Craig David Dowsett as Winnie-the-Pooh, Chris Cordell as Piglet and Nikolai Leon as Christopher Robin.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is currently playing in select theatres.
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