Movie Review: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

Synopsis: After going off to college, Christopher Robin returns to the 100 Acre Woods with his new wife so he can reconnect with the friends everyone else thinks were imaginary. However, he soon learns Winnie the Pooh and Piglet have killed the other animals and angry over his abandoning them, have turned feral. He and a group of women on a retreat have their lives in danger as a result.

Who's in it? The movie stars Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Amber Doig-Thorne and Danielle Ronald.

Review: This wasn't a film that was particularly high on my list of movies I wanted to see. However, it was readily available on Peacock and since my wife and I wanted a horror film, gave it a try. Frankly, I wasn't impressed.

I'll give the movie a few points for uniqueness. I mean, when you think of killers, Winnie the Pooh would probably be the last character that would come to mind. Other than that image though, there's really nothing special about this film.

I think one of my biggest problems with the movie is there is no effort to give the audience an opportunity to establish a rapport with any of Pooh and Piglet's victims. I guess the filmmakers assumed most viewers would already have a connection with Christopher Robin (Leon), which is fair. But he has a relatively small role in the film, and I honestly couldn't even tell you the other victims' names or much else about them. If you don't care about a victim, it's hard to feel any sense of suspense when they are in danger or sadness when they die.

It also doesn't help that most of the characters aren't very smart or, at very least, have no survival instinct. At times, it was almost as though they wanted to die. Case in point, a victim who found herself facing Piglet in a pool and stayed in the water, barely trying to back away from the killer pig, instead of doing the sensible thing and getting out of the pool when he was giving her plenty of opportunity to do so.

Final Opinion: Intriguing concept but the overall execution was weak at best and the film really doesn't do anything to set itself apart from the hundreds of other low-budget slasher films that focus more on gore than storytelling. 

My Grade: D