Director – Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Screenplay – Matt Leslie, Story – Rhys Frake-Waterfield & Matt Leslie, Producers – Rhys Frake-Waterfield & Scott Jeffrey, Photography – Vince Knight, Music – Andrew Scott Bell, Visual Effects – Ryan Bellgardt, CKVFX, Steve Clarke, Paul Knott & Lumapix Creative Startup LLP, Special Effects – FilmsFX (Supervisor – Keith Harding), Makeup Effects/Prosthetics Designer – The Prosthetics Studio (Paula Anne Booker-Harrison & Shaun Harrison), Production Design – Jamie Sneddon. Production Company – Jagged Edge Productions.
Cast
Scott Chambers (Christopher Robin), Tallulah Evans (Lexy), Ryan Oliva (Winnie-the-Pooh), Marcus Nassey (Owl), Lewis Santer (Tigger), Eddy MacKenzie (Piglet), Simon Callow (Cavendish), Alec Newman (Alan Robin), Thea Evans (Anna ‘Bunny’ Robin), Ash Tandon (Dr Collins), Nicola Wright (Daphne Robin), Teresa Banham (Mary Darling), Flynn Gray (Freddie), Tade Adebajo (Ava), Nichaela Farrell (Cara), Flynn Matthews (Finn), Kelly Rian Sanson (Mia), Lila Lasso (Jamie), Tosin Thompson (Alice), Jamie Robertson (Officer Daughtry), Thanael Weeks (Shepard), Joshua Osei (Darrell), Sam Barrett (Aaron), Peter Desouza-Feighoney (Young Winnie-the-Pooh)
Plot
In the aftermath of the slaughter conducted by the animals of Hundred Acre Woods, Christopher Robin is blamed and thought a murderer. He is ostracised all around Ashdown. He graduates with his medical studies but is removed from his position at the hospital because people feel uncomfortable. The animals continue they spree of slaughter. In an effort to understand what happened, Christopher attends a psychologist who uses hypnotic regression to delve into his childhood memories. There he understands how his younger brother Billy was snatched along with other children. They were taken to the scientist Dr Gallup who conducted a series of experiments, fusing them with animal DNA to create the animals of Hundred Acre Woods.
Winnie the Pooh was originally a children’s character created by A.A. Milne (1882-1956). The stories were told his son Christopher Robin based on Christopher Robin’s stuffed toys. Milne published the stories in two book collections in the 1920s. These gained much popularity and were later adapted into a series of Disney films. Prolific low-budget UK producer Scott Jeffrey and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield caused quite a degree of controversy when they released a dark horror version Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), showing the animals of Hundred Acre Woods turned into brutal killers.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II is fairly much more of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. What is evident is that the success of the first film has allowed Jeffrey and Frake-Waterfield a bigger budget. The first film looked like it was made on another Scott Jeffrey low budget with the cut corners held together with bare sufficiency, whereas this looks altogether more assured and better shot. Indeed, this must be the first time in a Scott Jeffrey production where I’ve seen the employment of actors I’ve recognised from outside of their films – Alec Newman and award-winning stage and screen actor Simon Callow.
The other noticeable thing about Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II is that the bigger budget has allowed Rhys Frake-Waterfield to go for broke when it comes to gore and splatter. This is amply evident from the opening scene where a trio of girls are slaughtered in a caravan, including one having her fingers twisted after being slammed in the door; another set on fire inside the caravan; and Kelly Rian Sanson, who has her foot caught in a bear trap, before Pooh comes and breaks all of her limbs and then shoves her head into the trap. Elsewhere, a police officer has her arm torn off and is then beaten and impaled with it, while Christopher Robin’s mother (Nicola Wright) has her head shoved down to be impaled on a set of kitchen knives pointing up from the dishwasher.
Pooh (Ryan Oliva) on a murderous rampage
The scene that totally goes to town is the one where the animals invade the rave, resulting in wholesale slaughter. In the most outrageous scene, Pooh throws a chain to encircle a girls’ head, wrenching it off and then splattering in mid-air as he hits it using a bar he is carrying as a bat. Elsewhere, we get Tigger slaughtering a roomful of people, watch a body bounce between the railings of a set of stairs, see a woman pinned on a platform and repeatedly stabbed through the grille from beneath, along with assorted beheadings. Frake-Waterfield seems to be having the time of his life with the new budget. A.A. Milne is no doubt speed rotating in his grave.
For the most part, the plot doesn’t exactly tread new ground – it is just the animals of the story doing more killings. We do get the introduction of other animals from the A.A. Milne originals, including a version of Tigger as a full tiger and Owl, who becomes like a Hawkman prowling the skies to snatch the unwary. Pooh is fairly much the same, although becomes more than ever like a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers in relentless pursuit of victims. The film does a mildly meta thing a la Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows (2000) and talks about a film being made of what happened and then screening scenes from the first film.
The other interesting thing is how we now get an explanation of the animals being the results of genetic experiments to create Human-Animal Hybrids. And that one of these was Christopher Robin’s younger brother, neatly rationalising his connection to the animals. It is something that takes Winnie-the-Pooh out of the realms of fantasy and well into the arena of something like The Island of Dr Moreau (1896).
