Written by William Brooks
In a world where intellectual property rights eventually expire … Pooh happens.
As you may recall in May of last year, news of a Winne-the-Pooh inspired microbudget slasher broke out of the usual horror blogosphere, and found itself generating quite the buzz on more mainstream news platforms (such as The Guardian and CNN). While the meme worthy production stills did the rounds on social media, we were told that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey would ask the question of what might happen if Christopher Robin outgrew his imaginary stuffed friends. Fast forward to last week, and now I’m the one asking the questions — namely if there is anything I won’t do to avoid writing my dissertation. Apparently not, as I found myself studiously taking notes while Pooh drove a car directly over an incapacitated woman’s skull until the pressure made her eyeball pop out. Oh bother.
If you assumed that it would be a particularly nippy day in hell before Disney allowed such depravity to involve one of their IP superstars, you’d be right. As of 2022, the content of AA Milne’s first story about the menagerie of philosophically inclined woodland chums entered the public domain and legally threw open the creative floodgates. Artists far and wide could suddenly do whatever they pleased with or to Pooh, and those schlock recidivists over at Jagged Edge Productions wasted absolutely no time in lunging for the lowest-hanging fruit.
Written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Blood and Honey centres on a now adult Christopher Robin returning to the Hundred Acre Wood to find that his childhood friends’ brutish animal instincts have taken over after years of seclusion and starvation, turning them into bloodthirsty killers. And if you were expecting a second sentence to further describe what else this film might contain, then you’re shit out of luck, because that’s all folks. Some utterly passé sorority girls show up just to inflate the body count, but their every utterance is an exercise in inanity, and they barely boast a single personality trait between them. I think I speak for all of us when I say that I was anticipating far more multifaceted character writing from the man who brought us Demonic Christmas Tree (2022) and Firenado (2023).
The primary (though by no means only) disappointment here is that the film does almost nothing to send up or even riff on the conventions of its own source material. Public domain or not, Disney’s particular representation of Pooh will remain under copyrighted lock and key for nearly 40 more years, which means no signature catchphrases, no red shirt, no send-up of Sterling Holloway’s iconic voice performance and no Tigger (for now at least). Cumulatively, these factors render Blood and Honey something of a Theseus’ paradox, raising the ontological question of how much alteration Pooh’s image can sustain before he’s stripped of his essential character and the whole project becomes an effort in futility. Ultimately, the only reason we end up associating anything here with Milne’s universe is because the film verbally tells us to do.
On the filmmaking front, the efforts seem to begin and end with one guy donning the cheapest-looking rubber “bear” mask ever committed to film (Craig David Dowsett) and another being consigned to a similarly ridiculous “pig” mask (Chris Cordell). The poor sods are barely able to open and close their mouths, and are wholly incapable of moving expressively while they run around killing people. At all times they come across as two burly blokes in arbitrary costumes rather than the characters they are supposed to be evoking. Both performers lumber about with the ungainliness of a pair of rhinos in high heels, desperately trying to avoid their headgear falling off, and their glacial pursuits of their targets are intensely ludicrous.
There will come a time in the near future where you, dear reader, are scouring the depths of your various streaming services and will happen upon this film. “Hey, that might be good for a laugh!” you’ll say to yourself (in between shoving crayons up your nostrils, obviously) but I implore you to reconsider. The only allure here boils down to its subversive premise. And if you’ve spent a few seconds imagining what such a thing might entail, then you’ve already exacted everything there is to exact. I was reminded of a recent SNL sketch wherein the cast spent five minutes making a trailer for a gritty live action adaption of Mario Kart, and how it became less funny and more predictable the longer it went on. Blood and Honey is exactly that — a one-note parody trailer dragged out over the course of 84 excruciatingly long minutes.
Creative licence lies at the heart of the argument in favour of public domain. Do you want Captain Nemo to go into business selling children’s frozen dinners? Well, he’s as much yours as Jules Verne’s! Take that, you bearded paid-by-the-word French tosser! But if your idea just consists of slapping a proper noun on generic chaff in order to attain a shortcut to distinction, then really you deserve any litigation coming your way. And in the end, isn’t making ordinary people side with Disney’s faceless, soul-sucking legal department far more offensive than foisting unforgivable atrocities on literature’s cuddliest bear?
Image by Apollo Daka
So, there you have it. The bottom of the honey pot has officially been scraped, and I hope you’re happy for reducing me to this. Now back to the dissertation. Just as soon as I finish rearranging this box of cornflakes by surface area.
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