| Director: | Rhys Frake-Waterfield |
| Screenplay: | Matt Leslie |
| Cinematography: | Vince Knight |
| Music: | Andrew Scott Bell |
| Distributor: | Altitude Film Distribution |
| Runtime: | 94 minutes[1] |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $500,000[2] |
| Gross: | $7.5 million[3] [4] |
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (stylised as Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II) is a 2024 British independent slasher film directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and written by Matt Leslie. It is the second installment of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) and a sequel to (2023), which serves as a horror retelling of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books. The film stars Scott Chambers as Christopher Robin, and Ryan Oliva as the titular character, with Tallulah Evans, Teresa Banham, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Alec Newman, and Simon Callow in supporting roles. It follows Pooh as he embarks on a murderous rampage through Christopher Robin's childhood town to seek revenge on him for revealing his existence to the world.
Following the success of Blood and Honey, director Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in a sequel that, eventually, was greenlit in November 2022. The film utilizes metafictional and film within a film elements as Chambers, Oliva, and Eddy McKenzie replace original cast members Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett, and Chris Cordell in the roles of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet, respectively.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 premiered in London on 18 March 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States on 26 March 2024, and in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2024. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $7.5 million worldwide on a budget of $500,000. A sequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3, is scheduled to be released in 2026.
After narrowly surviving Winnie-the-Pooh's and Piglet's killing spree, Christopher Robin flees from the Hundred Acre Wood and returns to his childhood town of Ashdown to seek help; the corpses of Maria and her friends are recovered from the woods, but Christopher is believed to be responsible.
The incident is dubbed as the "Hundred Acre Massacre", and a film adaptation based on the murders is released, damaging Christopher's reputation in Ashdown. Few people actually believe in Christopher's story, which includes his childhood friends Lexy, Finn, and Aaron, his parents Alan and Daphne, and his younger sister Bunny. Now an outcast, Christopher has nightmares about Pooh and goes to his hypnotherapist Mary Darling to deal with a trauma when his twin brother Billy was kidnapped several years ago during their birthday party and was never seen again.
Meanwhile, in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh and Piglet are forced to hide with fellow creatures Tigger and Owl when their home is burned down. After they slaughter three university students in a recreational vehicle, Owl tries to convince Pooh to attack Ashdown instead of waiting for more people to come to the woods. Some hunters, led by Aaron, ambush the creatures and kill Piglet as revenge for the students' death. Pooh kills them and reconsiders Owl's proposal, but Aaron survives and returns to Ashdown.
Due to the town's negative backlash, Christopher loses his job as a doctor at the local hospital and returns with Mary to undergo further hypnotherapy. When Aaron arrives at the hospital for treatment, Christopher suspects the attack was done by Pooh, which is confirmed when he asks Aaron what happened. He also encounters hospital janitor Cavendish, whom he recognizes as the man who kidnapped Billy, and confronts him in his house. Cavendish reveals that he worked for Dr. Arthur Gallup, a scientist who employed him to kidnap children around Ashdown for experiments with animal genes in exchange for settling his debts. The children did not survive and were buried in the Hundred Acre Wood, where they came back as half-animal, half-human hybrids with an enhanced healing factor. Cavendish reveals that he murdered Gallup and that Billy was among the victims before he commits suicide out of guilt.
Upon learning that Billy was resurrected as Pooh and the creatures' imminent attack, Christopher warns the entire town but faces ridicule and skepticism. As night falls, Pooh, Tigger, and Owl embark on a rampage throughout Ashdown and kill several residents on the way, including Finn. Pooh personally kills Alan and Daphne and attacks Lexy, but she survives. The creatures then arrive to a rave party at a warehouse and slaughter all the partygoers. Christopher rushes to the warehouse where he fatally shoots Tigger and learns that Bunny was kidnapped. He returns to the Hundred Acre Wood and fights Pooh, who easily subdues him as they stumble across Billy's own grave. Christopher calls Pooh by his real name and he tries to remember his childhood but accuses Christopher of abandoning the creatures, deeming him responsible for Eeyore's death years prior.
Lexy intervenes and stalls Pooh long enough for Christopher to kill him with an axe. CCTV footage from the creatures' killing spree on Ashdown is passed to the police, who found Bunny unharmed, and Christopher is subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Owl, having survived, recovers the bodies of Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet, and promises to find a way to revive them and get revenge on Christopher once and for all.
In a June 2022 interview with Josh Korngut of Dread Central, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in creating a sequel to , and stated that he wants to "ramp it up even more and go even crazier and go even more extreme".[5] In September 2023, teaser images were released showing the addition of the new character Owl.[6] Principal photography also concluded that month. The film features a new cast and new character designs, and takes place in the town of Ashdown rather than the Hundred Acre Wood. Additionally, the character Tigger, who was absent from the first film, appears since going in the public domain in January 2024. The film's screenplay was written by Matt Leslie.[7]
The film was originally reported to have a budget five times larger than its predecessor;[8] it would later be confirmed that the budget had increased to ten times larger than the first film. Shaune Harrison, who previously worked on productions such as World War Z, the Harry Potter franchise, and Game of Thrones, was the film's creature and gore designer, while Paula Anne Booker leads the special effects.[9] In 2023, it was revealed that Frake-Waterfield intended to have Pooh wield a chainsaw as a weapon in the film,[10] and that the film would feature over thirty deaths.[11] The film takes inspiration from Terrifier 2.[12] Winnie-the-Pooh's prosthetics in the film cost over $20,000 compared to the $770 spent on the first film's costume.[13]
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 premiered at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, London, on 18 March 2024. It was theatrically released in the United States and Canada by Fathom Events on 26 March 2024 and was released in the United Kingdom by Altitude Film Distribution on 7 June 2024.[14] [1] The film was released on Amazon Prime Video on 26 June 2024.[15]
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 grossed $533,144 in the United States and Canada, and $7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $7.5 million.[16]
Luke Thompson of The A.V. Club gave the film a positive review, writing "This is cinema at its most punk rock—a raucous, unpolished, cheap, sacred-cow shredding middle finger to the mainstream with just enough raw talent inside to keep it from being dismissable."[17] IGN's Matt Donato gave it a score of 6/10, comparing its approach to that of Terrifier 2 and writing, "It boasts a nastier midnight-movie appeal, radical practical effects, and a brisk 90-minute runtime. It's a shaky first step for Frake-Waterfield's proposed 'Poohniverse' concept – but it's a step in the right direction."[18]
Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave the film a negative review, criticizing the screenplay and direction. He concluded his review by writing, "Somewhere up in drive-in-theater heaven, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ed Wood are smiling, even if Frake-Waterfield makes them look like Scorsese and Spielberg."[19] The Daily Beast's Nick Schager said the film "boasts a bigger budget, higher production values, and an entirely new cast. Alas, when it comes to the things that matter most—like writing, directing, and acting—it's as chintzy and inept as its predecessor."[20]
On 28 March 2024, two days after the film's release, it was announced that a third film was being developed.[21]
See main article: The Twisted Childhood Universe. In November 2022, two other horror films were announced: and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare based on Bambi, a Life in the Woods and Peter and Wendy, respectively.[22] [23] [24] In February 2023, Frake-Waterfield announced that the various projects take place in The Twisted Childhood Universe, sharing continuity as a franchise. The filmmaker further stated that Jagged Edge Productions intends to eventually have crossovers featuring all of the characters.[25] In January 2024, a third film, Pinocchio: Unstrung, based on The Adventures of Pinocchio, was announced as part of the TCU.[26] Pinocchio: Unstrung was referenced at the end of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2; while other teases to the expanded universe and future projects were displayed through drawings during the end credits.[27]
In March 2024, the series' first crossover film titled Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble was revealed, with Scott Chambers confirmed to be reprising his role as Christopher Robin as well as Roxanne McKee returning as Xana from , along with additional horror iterations of fairytale characters such as Sleeping Beauty, the Talking Cricket and the Mad Hatter.[28]
Frake-Waterfield also expressed interest in making films about Thor, the Norse god of thunder,[29] as well as copyrighted franchises such as Teletubbies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Powerpuff Girls.[30] [31]