Reviews

Well, here we are again. We watched this last night in the cinema with about 15 other people. Why do I do this to myself? Because I love horror films. Love them. And I wanted so much to enjoy the first Blood and Honey, and I felt scammed. But with the promise of an increased budget and what appeared to be positive things being said about it, I thought I would give it another go.

The budget has been spent on three things. The costumes have been improved upon. And, they have clearly spent a lot on getting Tiktokers to say good things, and the admittedly clever use of marketing.

But, make no mistake, it's bad. I will say worse than the first, because here we can't try to partially blame a low budget. It falls firmly at the doorstep of bad filmmaking.

The director doesn't seem to know how to make a film scary or interesting or look good or get good performances or frame a good shot or create tension or.... Looking at their IMDB it would appear they have made ALOT of films. How is it that they don't know anything about what makes a film work? The writer shows no skill in creating a cohesive story with some muddled backpedaling to the original idea. It's also strangely boring. We didn't walk out like we did the first, as I had heard there was a rave scene at the end of the film. But it's not worth waiting for. Again, no tension, no scare, just some badly rendered gore, weird camera angles, bad lighting, jarring music and, like the first, kills offscreen.

The acting is bad. Here, one of the producers has cast (or rather mis-cast) themselves as Christopher Robin. I think making Christopher Robin a gay character is an interesting and novel idea. But they make absolutely no mention to it whatsoever. They also have a one expression look throughout and the Pooh confrontation is cringe. All the victims can't even scream with any level of believability. The parents for some reason both mumble their way through their lines (as if they received the script two minutes beforehand). And Simon Callow? Please fire your agent, immediately. You used to make good films.

Luckily there are lots of other good horror films on the horizon, made by people who know what they are doing. Another positive is met some nice other horror fans (who also hated this film btw).

But I am out with these. Officially.

First off, I really like this show. Is it award winning television? No. Is it an accurate depiction of how the FBI operates in Europe? Probably not.

But each week we have a new interesting story, in different locations outside of the USA which makes the show different and exciting.

The actors manage to elevate the material and reach the highs of each situation and emotion.

The change of cast for season 2 seems to work better as Smitty is more involved in the action.

The writing also feels stronger for season 2 with slightly more compelling weekly stories and I'm sensing the payoff for the overall arc will be more interesting.

Good, mindless entertainment - love it.

To me, this is what filmmaking is all about. We can all have our opinions about Tom Cruise, but whatever we think or say - the man knows how to make a film people will enjoy and want to see.

How I know a film is good is when I lose myself. It doesn't happen very often. But during this, I didn't think about anything else. Just enjoyed the action and what was happening on screen.

What I don't understand about the discussion of whether this film "bombed" is they are not taking into account this is a two part film and when the second one is released, that will easily surpass the budget and the film will be massively profitable.

If there are any "real" directors reading this; there is clearly an interest in a Winnie the Pooh horror. This isn't it.

I don't even know where to start in expressing the sheer disappointment of this "film". What's worse, it doesn't appear to be an issue about the low budget - more the direction. We have all seen recently what can actually be achieved with a small budget. It would appear this "director' got very lucky with an interesting idea, but has no idea how to actually make a film.

Our cinema was about half full, but after 45 minutes I would guess half of those had left. Not because it was scary or gory or too intense - but, my guess, and along with us, bored out their minds. By about an hour in the rest of the audience had broken into conversation. We left with about 15 minutes left as just couldn't take another second.

On the way out I asked for a refund (never done that before lol). The guy behind the counter laughed and said a couple others had said the same thing.

So what's wrong with it? Well, first and foremost its not scary. It's also not funny or clever or interesting or well shot. It drags on and on with super bad acting, awful music, bad editing, bad camera work, dreadful lighting, terrible dialogue, super cheap looking costumes.... and I could probably go on.

Sometimes bad films can be a cheesy, campy good time but the absolute killer here is - it's boring.

The world of horror has some absolutely fantastic up and coming directors and its a shame someone with some talent didn't have this idea and execute it properly. But as Winnie is now public domain, maybe someone will.

And, somebody needs to ban these people from ever making another film. And, I want my money back.

As I was writing this review I came across a review in the Daily Beast by Nick Schager (full credit to him for the below and the full article can be found online/socials) that puts it so much more eloquently than I have been trying to:

"Frake-Waterfield exhibits minimal skill at framing a unique or unnerving shot, effectively transitioning between scenes, or eliciting jolts though canny cuts or audio cues. He's not helped by Vince Knight's muddy, shaky cinematography and Andrew Scott Bell's comatose score, which loses steam at precisely the moments that is should be punctuating the action.

Its difficult to fault the musicians for their lethargy, however, in light of the omnipresent amateurishness on display, almost none of which can be blamed on production constraints; though its clear that Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey was made on a shoestring budget, its failings have to do with a simple lack of talent both in front of and behind the camera.

In the weeks leading up to Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey's premiere, the writer/director has expounded on his plans to film a series of additional children's lit horror shows, with Bambi and Peter Pan next in line for the grim dark treatment. On the basis of this fiasco, however, that feels like so much wishful thinking. For all of Pooh's kills, the greatest casualty of his rampage may just be Frake-Waterfield's career prospects".