Last Year’s Worst Horror Movie Has the Best Excuse in its Sequel

Horror cinema has the widest gulf in quality among successful entries. Absolute garbage and flawless masterpieces can bring home millions in the same weekend. Horror is also one of the most sequel-friendly genres in the medium. Even before everything was a franchise, horror movies could drag nine or ten entries out of a concept as simple as a killer at a summer camp. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was a terrible film that made money, guaranteeing a sequel. That sequel should teach a valuable lesson to those who want to follow a financial success and cultural failure.

Blood and Honey is part of the new wave of horror movies cynically derived from existing IP that recently entered the public domain. Mickey Mouse is the current target, as his introduction, Steamboat Willy, became public material at the start of 2024. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit will receive the same treatment soon. Blood and Honey was only the first of several high-profile efforts to draw ticket sales from a familiar name while also making the laziest imaginable horror garbage. The recent sequel is, at the very least, the first sign that these films may eventually approach a level of quality.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was awful

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is the first theatrical release in the filmography of one Rhys Frake-Waterfield. The English writer/director/producer started making movies in 2021 after quitting his day job to pursue horror cinema. He produced at least 36 feature films in his first two years. He oversaw classics likeDinosaur Hotel, H.P. Lovecraft’s Monster Portal, and Croc!. If Frake-Waterfield’s filmography has one central theme, it’s his love for taking familiar pop-cultural figures and recontextualizing them into horror films. He’s made no-budget scary movies out of Bloody Mary, the Krampus, Jack Frost, a Christmas Tree, Jack and Jill, Van Helsing, the Easter Bunny, and more. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was the first of many entries to join his prospective Twisted Childhood Universe, a shared continuity that will eventually contain dark reimaginings of Pinocchio, Bambi, Peter Pan, and Sleeping Beauty, among others. This will eventually culminate in a crossover feature called Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble. It’s a shame the first entry is one of the worst horror films ever made.

There are no positive elements in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. It’s soulless, pointless, dim, boring, repetitive, unimaginative, and crushingly bland. The film follows two large men in unconvincing Halloween store masks claiming to be Winnie the Pooh and Piglet as they kill a bunch of one-dimensional victims before they manage to target Christopher Robin. The lore doesn’t make sense, the effects are abysmal, the characters would be equally compelling if they were replaced with the cheap dummies they become during kill scenes, and the script is devoid of wit. There’s nothing in the film worth watching. It’s not even valuable as a “so bad it’s good” offering. The irony-poisoned internet meme hive mind turned “Winnie the Pooh horror movie” into a funny joke, allowing the artless schlock to make millions off of disappointed viewers. It’s sad to see the same force that made Sony re-release Morbius reward Blood and Honey, but that massive financial return guaranteed the rest of the Poohniverse a wide release.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is a massive improvement

Blood and Honey 2 is still a thousand miles from anything particularly special. It lands somewhere among the lower-tier Friday the 13th entries. Still, that is an unimaginable leap forward from the first movie. The original Blood and Honey brought home five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. The sequel will probably stay away from that terrible dishonor. The effects are better, the characters have a bit of pathos behind them, the actors seem more suited to their work, and even the script is a bit smarter. Frake-Waterfield and new writer Matt Leslie find a lot more to do with the gimmick. Everything in the film is elevated, leaving the experience worthwhile, at least to slasher fans. A lot of the credit goes to Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2, which seems to have brought back the slasher genre with considerable force. If every Poohniverse entry is this big a leap forward in quality, the next one will actually be pretty good, and the crossover will redefine the genre.

How did Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 justify the first movie?

Blood and Honey 2 has a completely different story with new looks for the killer animals and a new actor portraying Christopher Robin. They could have continued without acknowledging the changes, but they didn’t. Instead, Blood and Honey 2 recontextualized the first film into an in-universe slasher adaptation of the “Hundred Acre Massacre.” Some of the events of the first film occurred, but any retcons or discrepancies are due to the first film’s in-and-out-of-universe low quality. That allows the filmmakers to hang a lampshade on the changes while poking a bit of goodnatured fun at their earlier work. This is a perfect tone to strike when it comes to dealing with a bad first film.

Despite the many sins of director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, let it never be said that he can’t laugh at himself and his work. Blood and Honey 2 is well on its way to becoming a serviceable slice of slasher movie fun. Here’s hoping the indie production’s second multi-million dollar payday can get this franchise into even better territory.