Critics’ reviews

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

14 reviews from 14 publications. Critics’ score 25: 0 positive, 1 mixed, 13 negative.

Back to our review of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

25
Positive
0
Mixed
1
Negative
13

The consensus is strongly negative: most critics find Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey a thin slasher whose childhood characters supply a premise but little else. The reviews repeatedly criticise the writing, performances and murky visuals, with scant praise for any department. What appreciation there is centres on the practical gore and occasional effectiveness of the grotesque imagery. Several critics argue that the lack of humour wastes the opportunity for an irreverent reinvention, while others object to the sadism and treatment of women.

The disagreement concerns how much those basic horror pleasures count for. IndieWire offers the lone mixed assessment, finding that the murderous Pooh and Piglet deliver the expected cheap thrills despite the limitations. Polygon also credits the gore, but finds the pacing and lack of personality dispiriting. The masks divide opinion: Empire finds them initially creepy, while The Wrap considers them too cheap to make convincing monsters.

IndieWire
16 February 2023 · C+ · Christian Zilko
63

The microbudget slasher delivers exactly the expected public-domain horror premise of a feral Pooh and Piglet going on a murderous rampage. It succeeds at basic gory kills and cheap thrills despite its obvious limitations.

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Little White Lies
10 March 2023 · 1/2/1 · Patrick Sproull
40

The critic calls the film a technically incompetent slasher that delivers only on the basic promise of seeing Pooh and Piglet hack people to death. They single out its lack of conscience and self-awareness as making it slightly preferable to something like Cocaine Bear.

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The New York Times
17 February 2023 · Kyle Turner
30*

The film gives a threadbare horror treatment to a childhood favorite. Pooh and Piglet are turned into grotesque cannibalistic monsters who terrorize young women after Christopher Robin abandons them.

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The Times
10 March 2023 · ★☆☆☆☆ · Ziba Adel
30*

What could be irreverent fun is disappointingly and disturbingly not played for laughs in this low-budget horror. The opportunistic zero-budget flick cloddishly desecrates childhood memories with a dimly written sub-standard slasher aimed only at making a fast buck.

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Radio Times
· Terry Staunton
20

The critic describes it as an amateurish horror that stretches a thin premise into a nasty, pointless exercise in gore with shoddy camerawork, dreadful script and appalling performances. They single out the illogical choice of mostly female victims given the bear's grudge against Christopher Robin.

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Time Out
8 March 2023 · Helen O’Hara
20*

The critic finds it just another sadistic slasher movie notable only for its inexpressive animal masks, missing the chance for witty reinvention of the characters. They single out its reveling in misogyny, titillation and gore without characters or texture.

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Empire
9 March 2023 · Kim Newman
10*

The critic finds the film fails on every level with the poorest writing and acting in a theatrically-released horror film. They single out the creepy masks as initially effective but criticize the overall ineptitude and lack of fun.

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The Guardian
9 March 2023 · Peter Bradshaw
10*

The film is a terrible horror version of AA Milne that combines not-scary and not-funny elements in a cack-handed execution. It delivers a generic derivative slasher script where Pooh and Piglet could just as easily be masked killers menacing young women.

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The Telegraph
9 March 2023
10*

This moronic slasher re-imagines the childhood friends as ravening mutants in an amateurishly made film that is hard to see and hear. It is guaranteed to be the most cretinous film covered in 2023.

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Polygon
16 February 2023 · Tasha Robinson
40*

The critic finds it a dreary, dispiriting viral provocation with no substance or real ties to Winnie the Pooh. Singles out effective practical gore, convincing screams of agony, and grotesque imagery for exploitation fans while criticizing the leaden pacing, murky visuals, and absence of humor, personality, or purpose.

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NME
7 March 2023 · James Mottram
30*

The critic calls it a sticky mess of a movie, a low-budget, bad-taste romp that relies on gory kills but lacks substance despite a clever public domain concept. They single out the prosthetic masks and the film's reliance on gratuitous violence for complaint.

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The Wrap
16 February 2023
20*

The critic finds the film a cheap, crass, and largely incompetent horror movie that feels half-written with pointless characters and storylines. They single out the embarrassingly cheap monster masks that fail to make Pooh and Piglet look like actual monsters.

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Collider
16 February 2023 · F · Ross Bonaime
15

The critic calls it a disaster of an idea with terrible execution and one of the worst films of 2023. Singles out the shoddy production, atrocious performances, inept direction and screenplay, and complete lack of meaningful connection to the source material beyond the title.

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/Film
16 February 2023 · 1/10 · Witney Seibold
10

The critic finds the film a stupid, humorless bloodbath that plays the horror premise completely straight without any irony or creativity in its kills or filmmaking. They single out the poor, static rubber masks for the creatures as a major visual failure.

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Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate