"I did it... so you won't have to."It's taken me 3 attempts to finally stop putting off on doing this review. As they say in Spain "Let's draw a thick veil" or what is the same, let's eliminate this hour and 24 minutes from our mind. Let's look at the
MIB flash and we will all be happier in ignorance. I get movies like Jason X are laughably bad, but this one actually tries to be good which is sad. I hope I'm not being too hard on the movie, because there's still some fun to be had.
But I am getting ahead of myself here. In between ice cold beers at a steak dinner with Reggie, I offhandedly mentioned to him that we should plan an excursion to the theatre to watch this movie; "Do you really want to go see that?" he replied, a look of worry streaking across his face. I know it looks bad, I said, but I don't think I can resist. "It looks beyond bad," he exclaimed. "It looks terrible."
So I was under no illusion that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was going to be a great film in any reality or on any planet, given its premise, so my expectations were on the floor, but I hoped it would at least be enjoyable in the "it's so bad it's funny" sorry of way, but I was just left with WTF did I just watch? Have you ever seen the horror movie cliche insurance commercial, where the kids hide from the killer in the shed full of chainsaws. Well, this is the movie!
So what we get is a wafer-thin slasher where the novelty runs out as quickly as the movie starts and was predictable as watching sand fall through an hour glass, made on a shoestring budget...and it shoes. First of all I am going to put my hands up and admit the opening scene I thought ok we could be onto something here but I was very quickly put back onto the oh no path! It contains the typical tropes of 80's slashers and is a little gorier than most, but it fumbles the ball in several areas like first, let's start off with the plot, or lack thereof... so raw it’s probably got salmonella. Awful dialogue.
"The murderer must have written that!" No kidding, the murderer wrote "GET OUT" in your friend's brains and blood. Who else? I would have been more forgiving if it wasn't for the atrocious acting. Like the chick running so slow in the woods Michael Myers' could have caught her. Some plainly bad editing, pacing. The abrupt finale also made some other sequel-baiting flicks I can think of feel coherent.
Often, a slasher flick can be forgiven for its banality or idiocy if there was a modicum of creativity to the gore and to the filmmaking. This could’ve been one of those “So bad it’s good” intentionally cheesy movies but it took itself waaaaaay too seriously, or, at the very least, and more creative death scenes. Was it really so hard to have Pooh shove someone’s head into a beehive, let them get stung to death, and then eat the corpse covered in dead bees and honey?
There are two words that can sum this movie up, it'd be "wasted" and "potential" in that order, especially with the idea of Pooh and Piglet being mad at Christopher Robin for abandoning them! Instead, it's a group of university girls, with Christopher Robin in the sideline. It's just Friday The 13th but Jason went on vacation and hired Winnie The Pooh of all people to take his place.
It's films like this make me appreciate movies like 'Killer Klowns from Outer Space' all the more. Yup, it's dumb fun that's not for everyone, but you can tell the people behind the camera put passion and effort into what they were doing, which for me, makes it all the funnier. Plus, they actually had some really creative kills and concepts when using the whole clown motif as opposed to using it as a crutch for a one-off gag.
If I'm grasping at straws "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" does have a few minor qualities - the film limped and crawled it's way to 84 minutes, and it costed less than $100,000 and has gotten $4 million in the box office so far. It's definitely getting a sequel, for better or worse! So this flick seems to have it's fair share of fans - I'm just not one of them. I like me some indie films shot on a shoe string. But I can't do bad writing and lame performances - whether it's from low budget indie films or from big budget Hollywood.
To be fair, I'm looking at things through a critical eye lens. If you don't, and just shut off your brain, you'll probably have fun with it. This is definitely not a movie for everyone. I think it would best be enjoyed as a movie to stream and roast with some friends.
-A