“Oh, bother.”
Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh does not speak in this horror-themed reimagining of the classic Disney character, but if he did, I imagine he’d say his iconic catchphrase more than once — because this is a film which certainly deserves it.
Masterminded by English director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was announced in May 2022 and instantly gained notoriety and garnered significant controversy, but also stamped a permanent place in the minds of hardcore movie-goers such as myself. I wouldn’t say I was particularly excited, but I was intrigued, and sometimes, that’s enough.
In the world of Blood and Honey, Pooh Bear is no longer the cuddly teddy of Christopher Robin’s childhood — after the boy left Pooh and his pals in the Hundred-Acre Wood to go off to college, the friendly animals were left to their own devices and, naturally, descended into cannibalistic insanity. Now, Pooh (played in Blood and Honey by Craig David Dowsett) and Piglet (Chris Cordell) have become silent slasher killers — akin to Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers — a transformation I desperately do not wish for most iconic characters of my youth. While I didn’t necessarily grow up with Winnie-the-Pooh (that’s true, I had no childhood), his cultural impact is impossible to deny, and it’s infinitely jarring to see him depicted as a masked murderer.
