Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a 2023 British independent slasher film written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield in his directorial debut. The film serves as a horror retelling of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books and stars Craig David Dowsett as Winnie-the-Pooh and Chris Cordell as Piglet, with Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Amber Doig-Thorne, and Danielle Ronald in supporting roles. It follows Pooh and Piglet, who have now become feral and bloodthirsty murderers, as they terrorize a group of young university women and an adult Christopher Robin when he returns to the Hundred Acre Wood years later after leaving for college.

The film was first announced on May 24, 2022, where it drew widespread attention due to its premise involving a character that garnered a reputation as a "beloved childhood icon" and was met with divided reactions. It went into development after the 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh book entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2022, meaning that The Walt Disney Company no longer holds the exclusive film rights to the characters first depicted in the book and that anyone can legally use or reference the original book series without needing permission, as long as they avoid copying elements from the company's media franchise based on them. A ten-day period of shooting for the film took place in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England, that serves as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the stories.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey premiered in Mexico on January 26, 2023 and was theatrically released in the United States on February 15, 2023 by Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios. The film was originally set for a nationwide one-night event, but its screening was then expanded to a major worldwide theatrical release because of its popularity. A sequel is in development, with Leon and David Dowsett reprising their roles and Frake-Waterfield returning as director.

Plot

Many years ago, Christopher Robin met a group of anthropomorphic creatures – Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, and Owl – in the Hundred Acre Wood and they became friends with him. As he grew older, Christopher entered college to become a doctor and was forced to leave them on their own. Without Christopher to feed them and give them guidance and the arrival of winter, Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, and Owl went into extreme starvation and were forced to devour Eeyore, losing their humanity and returning to their feral instincts in the process and never to speak again.

5 years later, Christopher returns to the Hundred Acre Wood accompanied by his fiancée Mary to reunite with his old friends, but finds the place desolated. Ignoring Mary's warnings to leave, Christopher decides to investigate further and is surprised by Piglet, who strangles Mary to death with a chain. Horrified, Christopher tries to run away, but Pooh ambushes him and drags him back into the woods.

Sometime later, a group of university students – Maria, Jess, Alice, Zoe, and Lara – rent a cabin in the Hundred Acre Wood at the suggestion of Maria's therapist so she can forget a traumatic experience with a stalker. Another of Maria's friends, Tina, gets lost on the way to the cabin and is chased by Pooh to an abandoned factory, where Pooh grinds her alive with a wood chipper. Meanwhile, Christopher has been held prisoner in Pooh's treehouse, being tortured in retaliation for leaving his former friends to fend for themselves.

As night falls, Pooh and Piglet find the cabin and kidnap Lara while she is lounging in a pool. Piglet gags her while Pooh drives a car into Lara's head, crushing her skull. Maria and Jess hear the commotion and find Lara's corpse. Horrified, they run back to the cabin to warn Alice and Zoe. They are attacked by Pooh and separated from each other. Piglet also enters the cabin, knocks Alice unconscious, and kills Zoe with a sledgehammer. Maria and Jess watch as Pooh and Piglet take Alice away and decide to follow them into the woods to rescue her.

In Pooh's treehouse, Maria and Jess free Alice, Christopher, and another hostage named Charlene, whose husband Scott has already been murdered and was heavily scarred by Piglet. Seeking revenge, Charlene summons Piglet to kill him, but Pooh subdues her and lets Piglet to maul her face to death. Pooh chases Maria and Jess into the woods while Alice stays behind to bludgeon an unsuspecting Piglet with his own sledgehammer. Hearing Piglet squealing, Pooh runs back to the treehouse and confronts Alice before she could kill Piglet and proceeds to fatally impale her to the wall with a knife.

Maria and Jess run to the road where they stop a car driven by four locals – Logan, Tucker, John, and Colt – to ask for help. Despite the men's attempts to take him down, Pooh easily murders them one by one until Maria tries to run him over with the car. Pooh climbs into the car and Maria ends up crashing into a tree, losing consciousness. When Maria wakes up, she sees Pooh ripping Jess' head off. Pooh then tries to kill Maria until Christopher appears driving another car, running over and seemingly killing Pooh. When Christopher helps Maria, Pooh attacks her, about to murder her with his knife.

Christopher implores Pooh to spare Maria, vowing to stay with him forever in the Hundred Acre Wood. However, breaking his vow of silence, Pooh reminds Christopher that he abandoned him and slices Maria's throat. Pooh repeatedly stabs Maria's corpse as Christopher, realizing that Pooh is beyond help, flees the woods.

List of Deaths

Eeyore: Devoured by Pooh, Piglet, Tigger (not present), Rabbit, And Owl.
Mary Robin: Strangled to death by Piglet.
Tina: Grinded alive by Pooh with a wood chipper.
Lara: Skull crushed by Pooh ramming a car into her head.
Zoe: Murdered by Piglet with a sledgehammer.
Scott: Murdered off-screen by Piglet
Charlene: Face mauled by Piglet
Alice: Impaled on wall with a knife by Pooh
Colt: Face ripped off by Pooh
Tucker: Head smashed by Pooh
Logan: Throat slit by Pooh
John: Stung to death by bees summoned by Pooh
Jess: Head ripped off by Pooh
Maria: Throat slit by Pooh

Cast

Nikolai Leon as Christopher Robin
Craig David Dowsett as Winnie-the-Pooh
Chris Cordell as Piglet
Maria Taylor as Maria
Natasha Rose Mills as Jess
Amber Doig-Thorne as Alice
Danielle Ronald as Zoe
Natasha Tosini as Lara
Paula Coiz as Mary Robin
May Kelly as Tina
Richard D. Myers as Logan
Simon Ellis as Tucker
Jase Rivers as John
Marcus Massey as Colt
Danielle Scott as Charlene
Mark Haldor as Scott
Toby Wynn-Davies as the Narrator

Sequel

Main Article: Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2

In June 2022, Frake-Waterfield expressed an interest in creating a sequel and wants to "ramp it up even more and go even crazier and go even more extreme." A sequel is now in development, with Scott Chambers and Ryan Olivia as Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, respectively, and Frake-Waterfield returning as director.

Trivia

Production of the film became possible in 2022 after A. A. Milne's novel "Winnie-the-Pooh" (1926) entered the public domain in the U.S., which marked the first appearances of Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet and Christopher Robin.
This is the first Winnie the Pooh film not made by Disney and also not made for children.
It is the fourth horror film to be based on a children's franchise, after Saturday Morning Mystery (2012), The Banana Splits Movie (2019) and The Mean One (2022).
While trying to avoid copyright issues, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield was very careful to avoid Pooh's red shirt as well as Tigger, which didn’t appear until The House At Pooh Corner (2024) and Gopher. and any other elements from Disney's depictions that could pose a copyright issue.
Kanga and Roo were absent in the film because according to a Reddit AMA, Rhys didn’t want to oversaturate the film with too many characters from the books and wanted to introduce more in future installments.
Frake-Waterfield has also announced that not only is he working on a sequel to Blood and Honey, but he's also developing two twisted takes on two other children's tales, titled Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2024), and Bambi: The Reckoning (2025).

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