Overview
Five months following the murders, Christopher Robin tries returning to his regular life while dealing with his PTSD. Deep within the 100-Acre-Wood, a destructive rage grows as Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their home and their lives endangered after their existence is revealed.
Winnie The Pooh Blood And Honey was an underwhelming, underproduced, and rushed attempt to jump onto the expired copyright of the beloved characters from children’s stories and churn out a low-budget, schlocky horror. That film was clearly rushed out so fast that no effort was made to write anything even half decent, get anything remotely reasonable out of the cast, or offer anything creative to the idea. But, costing only $100,000 and grossing over $5 million, it was a success, and so a sequel promising the arrival of other inhabitants of 100 Acre Wood, including Tigger, was greenlit. With a bigger budget and more time to think through the idea, could this actually deliver something worthwhile?
The simple answer is a resounding, “No!”
I wasn’t a fan of the first film, and indeed gave it a pitiful half star rating. So why did I watch this? Well, curiosity more than anything else, and a small hope that the idea could grow into something worthwhile. After all, I often say how I love low-budget concept horrors, with films such as Zombeavers, Slotherhouse, and all those sharknado/sharktopus/etc trashy films. With the planned Poohniverse announced, which will offer horror takes on Bambi, Pinnocchio, and Peter Pan, my morbid curiosity got the better of me.
Now it is fair to say that this is a better film than the first entry, but that’s not much of an achievement. On the positives, the prosthetics for the creatures is pretty good, with even more character and definition being added to them than we saw in the first film. Tigger is a tad underwhelming, but Pooh and Owl in particular came over creepily well. The acting is better than the first film, with Scott Chambers replacing Nikolai Leon in the role of Christopher Robin for this entry, and that was a great choice – Leon was utterly dreadful, failing to deliver any lines without them feeling like he was reading them on a page for the first time. Chambers is, I hesitate to say it, quite good. The story adds in a dark origin for the bear and his friends that actually seems somewhat thought out, almost giving the film something heartfelt to latch onto.
Sadly, however, it all becomes a splatterfest too frequently, and the effects work is underwhelming, especially with the inclusion of some atrocious CGI elements that sadly undo any practical gore on offer. It is also – and this is a problem the first film had – far too serious in approach. Come on, this is a horror version of Winnie The Pooh! The concept alone is bonkers, so why not lean into that a little bit, and have fun with it rather than making it feel like a sub-par Friday The 13th film? Those trashy low-budget horrors I mentioned earlier all knew what they were, and despite being low quality are all boosted by the fact they don’t take themselves seriously at all. You can enjoy them by laughing along with them as they throw out gross horror in sometimes comedic ways. With Blood and Honey 2 there’s zero humour to alleviate the constant barrage of oppressive carnage, and the end result is 94 minutes of poorly handled ideas.
The end credits reel has sketches of some of the other Poohniverse characters we can expect to see, teasing the future of this low budget franchise. I’ll be honest and admit I’ll still be on board to check them out, but I’m not sure how long for as even though quality wise this was a step up, I can’t see things getting much better.