Following 2023’s risible slasher Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, made after rights to A.A. Milne’s loveable bear entered the public domain, the almost-as-execrable sequel arrives.
A short time after the ‘Hundred Acre Massacre’, Christopher Robin (Scott Chambers) is trying to put his life back together, despite the townsfolk of Ashdown believing he was responsible for the murder spree carried out by Pooh (Ryan Oliva), and his fellow woodland savages, Piglet (Eddy MacKenzie), Tigger (Lewis Santer) and Owl (Marcus Massey).
Christopher seeks help from a therapist to overcome his trauma, but the killing soon starts again, kicking off with three students mangled in the forest. Despite a nonsense backstory invented for the vile anthropomorphic antagonists, returning director Rhys Frake-Waterfield swiftly dispenses with anything resembling a plot, as Pooh and co. relentlessly scythe their way through the local residents. In one sequence, when Pooh invades a neon-lit rave, he bakes someone in an oven, drills into another’s eyes and saws a person’s head off - all inside a minute’s screen time.
To be fair, Blood and Honey 2 is actually a notch above its predecessor, if only because the production values are (relatively) higher. But despite a watchable turn from Chambers, this is largely Neanderthal filmmaking, even with hospital janitor Simon Callow offering up a Scottish accent and a lot of pointless exposition.
There are multiple allusions to far-superior horrors (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, et al), to which Matt Leslie’s script never comes close. The schlocky dialogue is rife with signposting, notably the nod to the dangerous-looking knives in the Robin-household dishwasher: a moment that, like so much in this sequel, is blindingly obvious and badly executed.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is in UK cinemas and US theaters now.
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