Pooh and the gang take another crack at the horror genre in Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, a slasher sequel to last year’s critically panned yet surprisingly lucrative public domain slasher . The monster makeup has improved, and the production values have been upped – both likely results of an increased budget – but the film can’t shake problems that bleed over from its inferior predecessor. The digital effects still lack polish, and it takes itself way too seriously for a B-movie about the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood going on a killing spree. Then there’s the biggest bother of them all: For all of its amusing ambitions and plans for a full cinematic universe of ruined, copyright-free childhood memories , Blood and Honey 2 is still a clunky execution of a provocative premise.
Blood and Honey 2 heightens the stakes by introducing a feathery ringleader in Owl (Marcus Massey) and the razor-clawed berzerker known as Tigger (Lewis Santer). More of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard’s legacy characters join in on the slaughtering, and they’re better outfitted compared to the janky rubber masks their pals wore last time. The villains now look more like human-animal hybrids: Winnie-the-Pooh (Ryan Oliva) resembles a yellow-skinned, pot-bellied Slenderman, while plump little Piglet (Eddy MacKenzie) could be a match for John Leguizamo in the Spawn movie . The costume fittings and makeup applications are nowhere near as atrocious this time around, with Owl looking like a distant cousin to Power Rangers adversary Ivan Ooze. And I say that with love.
Keying into the sadness that might come from being shunned for telling wild stories about rampaging, honey-loving beasts, Scott Chambers delivers one of the better performances in Blood and Honey 2. Replacing original Christopher Robin actor Nikolai Leon, Chambers embodies Christopher’s boyish nature and brings a sensitive stability to a character who can’t escape the judging eyes of his skeptical neighbors. Without Pooh or Piglet in custody, the people of Ashdown have no reason to believe his seemingly far-fetched account of what went down in those woods. Screenwriter Matt Leslie could have Christopher claim “I told ya so” when Pooh and company resurface, but he goes in the opposite direction, which serves Chambers’ soft and sorrowful portrayal of a protective big brother and son.
The sequel's slasher hilarity is cranked a couple notches higher, reportedly inspired by the reigning king of 2020s splatter, Terrifier 2 . That means the body count easily doubles, if not triples, thanks in no small part to a salacious, neon-bathed warehouse rave that’s violently interrupted by Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger. Credited gore designer Shaune Harrison displays a thousand ways to die as scantily clad partiers meet supremely messy fates that include decapitation, dismemberment, oven-roasting, and eyeball consumption. There’s a disturbingly playful anticipation when it comes to Blood and Honey 2’s death scenes, which keep pushing to be anything but generic slasher kills. Winnie-the-Pooh wields an electric drill and a flaming chainsaw while Tigger sashimis flesh with his claws – and let’s not forget Owl’s acidic upchuck attack.
That said, Terrifier 2 need not worry about losing its crown of entrails. Blood and Honey 2 leans too frequently on unfortunate digital touch-ups when more blood splatter is needed – or, in one egregious instance, hands reaching out of a tunnel entrance. The expert craftsmanship on display is squandered whenever animation creeps into the shot: SFX supervisor Paula Anne Booker manages some spectacular slasher effects but also delivers unforgivable digital flames and pixelated red mists that would feel more at home in Half-Life 2 . It doesn’t help that Vince Knight’s cinematography regresses to the previous film’s dependence on shaky-cam. The picture quality here is undoubtedly crisper (and a powerful indication of the increased budget) when steady, but Knight can’t stop himself from jostling the frame at the worst times, which takes the luster out of certain effects.
Leslie’s scattershot screenplay is littered with breadcrumbs for crossovers to come, but that information feels too cumbersome for a sequel so desperate to inflate Pooh’s kill statistics. It veers oddly close to Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy's adaptation: Christopher’s hypnotherapy-aided search for his brother’s kidnapper; some silly, exhaustingly predictable background on the Hundred Acre Wood and its inhabitants. (It’s like a second, retconned origin story.) The events of Blood and Honey are even made into an in-universe movie as a metatextual joke (think Scream 3 or New Nightmare ), but there’s just not enough room to follow through on that tantalizing tease – or, for that matter, any of Blood and Honey 2’s other lofty aspirations.
The B-movie absurdity of Pooh’s slayings never tonally matches the movie’s stuffy emotional subplots. Tallulah Evans’ compassionate Lexy can read as forgettably ancillary despite her closeness to Christopher – and she doesn’t really get a chance to reverse this because Blood and Honey 2 knows you’re here for the gruesome kills, and that’s where the priorities of Leslie’s plot lie. The body count overrides precise storytelling details, which spoils any character development not involving Pooh’s animalistic reapers or Christopher.
Frake-Waterfield desperately wants his Bloody and Honey sequel to be received with the same enthusiasm as Terrifier 2. I’ve seen Terrifier 2. I reviewed Terrifier 2 . Terrifier 2 slathered me in some of the most creative and psychotic horror-movie brutalities of the 21st century. Blood and Honey 2, you’re no Terrifier 2. Christopher Robin is no stand-in for Lauren LaVera’s instantly adored final girl Sienna Shaw, and Ryan Oliva’s presence under Pooh’s getup doesn’t equal David Howard Thornton’s gobsmacking charisma as Art the Clown. The now-vocal Owl, Piglet, and Tigger should’ve followed the example of Terrifier’s mute mutilator: There’s a limited range of morbid creativity in Tigger calling his targets “bitch” over and over. For every exciting blast of minty freshness like Winnie-the-Pooh’s bearish surge forward on all fours, there’s a weaker counterbalance to follow. The sequel reigns supreme, but let’s remember: Anything’s an upgrade compared to the first Blood and Honey.
