Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Has it only been 8 glorious months of safety since we saw Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey? That delicious slice of horror gold that basically re-invented the genre? OK, maybe I’m being a BIT facetious, but let's not all deny that a LITTLE part of us was intrigued by the idea of Winnie the Pooh becoming a psychotic murderer. I mean, with the beloved children’s character entering the public domain, this would happen sooner or later, and what better way to celebrate his legacy than to butcher it (sometimes quite literally)!? Well, the first film was rushed out with a $100,000 budget and summarily made over $7 MILLION worldwide. Yes, that’s 7,000% profit right there, so you can bet your bottom dollar that the powers that be IMMEDIATELY green-lit director/writer Rhys Frake-Waterfield to make a sequel with a much larger budget. Supposedly coming in at at around $500,000 for the budget (there have been other comments saying closer to $300,000, but $500,000 is the most quoted number so I’ll go with that) giving the fledgling horror director a bit more leeway with the film.

The town of Ashdown is trying to put the horror of the “100 Acre Massacre” from the previous film behind them, and so is Christopher Robin (Scott Chambers this time). Christopher sees a psychologist on the regular to deal with the “imaginary” monsters that he claims slaughtered all those people, while the rest of the town considers him the actual murderer (cuz seriously, no one is going to believe a raving young man about a human-sized pooh bear killing a bunch of teenagers). But he’s slowly dealing with the past and moving on as best he could. That is, until the rampaging monsters appear once more, causing the townsfolk to sit up and pay attention as the creatures from the 100-acre forest take the fight out of the woods and into the town.

The film kinda feels like this was the movie Rhys wanted to make last year but couldn’t. The previous film was so incredibly bad that even I couldn’t find a single bright spot out of the entire debacle, and most of that was due to the incredibly low budget (even by 40 years ago’s standards that he was given to work with. The animals were just humans in overalls with Halloween masks on, and given the inability to make it look like they were talking, Rhys invented the idea of having them take a vow of silence so as not to make it even worse. The kills were gory but fairly uninventive, and the flick just never stood a chance. However, I hate to even admit this, but I kinda like the sequel. The added budget really allows him to flesh out and sort of continue AND re-do the original all at once, with better kills, proper makeup for the monsters to allow them to talk, and an expanded plot line with Christopher Robin that really sort of makes sense in the environment. Sadly the last act sort of stumbles when Rhys tries to go TOO in-depth to the creation of Pooh, Piglet, and the rest, but overall it’s a rather large step up from the previous film.

I know I’m going to get some flak for this, but I kinda liked the film. It’s much more cinematic than the previous attempt, and the film sort of falls into that Slumber Party Massacre and Chopping Mall sort of campy humor. It’s never going to be a GOOD film, but it sort of works in that campy, schlocky “so bad it might be a cult classic someday” sort of way. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a TERRIBLE movie from all objective standpoints, but I weirdly was sort of digging it. Part of me wants to jump 20 years into the future to see how it’s held up, and if the horror community has accepted it into cult status.




Rating:

Rated PG for thematic elements




Video:

The AVC-encoded image for Blood and Honey 2 is a tad better than the previous film due to the obvious bump-up in budget. It’s not going to be super awesome and great, but it’s a well-done enough transfer for a low budget film to garner a nod of approval from yours truly. The film shows much more attention to detail in regards to lighting and costumes, so fine details and clarity are definitely a step above. Black levels can still sometimes crush due to the dim lighting and the ruddy/brown color grading that desaturates most of the primary shades, but overall it’s a solid-looking image. Clarity is sharp enough, fine details rather good, and while the monsters are a tad rough around the edges still, the makeup and masks don’t look nearly so horrible. The flatter blacks means we aren’t going to get super razor-sharp clarity (and I noticed some noisiness in the image here and there), but overall this is a solid-looking disc.









Audio:

Shout’s 5.1 DTS-HD MA track features crisp dialog, decent surround activity, and even a modicum of bass throughout the low low budget film. Vocals are well defined and locked up front where they belong, and the synth edged score creates enough activity in the surround channels to be perfectly acceptable. The stand-out feature of the entire mix centers around the fact that the film is very fast paced, and the audio follows suit, utilizing panning effects and ambient noises to shift the direction of the sound stage quite a bit. Bass is mostly low key, but there are a few kills that make very good use of the LFE for a few bumps in the night.











Extras:

• Image Gallery
• Theatrical Trailers

Final Score:
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Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is not a great movie, or even a good movie, but this really feels like the movie that Rhys Frake-Waterfield wanted to make last year, but couldn’t do due to nobody wanting to finance him. The film is still utterly awful and trashy, but cult horror fanatics may want to check it out for being so bizarrely crazy that it’s almost entertaining. The Scream Factory Blu-ray (which had a steelbook release a few months back strangely enough) looks and sounds as good as it can for a shoestring budget film, and the anemic extras one would expect. Although part of me REALLY wants an in-depth commentary to find out just how crazy things were behind the scenes and what it took to make this schlock. Most people will want to skip it, but I’m sure the cult fans will want to check it out.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Scott Chambers, Tallulah Evans, Ryan Olivia
Directed by: Rhys Freak-Waterfield
Written by: Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Matt Leslie
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 93 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: December 10th, 2024

Recommendation: Cult Watch

 

[Sonnie Parker]

What will they come up with next. I can understand why no one wanted to finance it. lol

 

[Michael Scott]

What will they come up with next. I can understand why no one wanted to finance it. lol

well, Steamboat Willie went into the public domain recently, maybe we'll see a faceoff between Pooh and Willie lol