Ursinho Pooh: Sangue e Mel

Blood and Honey is not a good movie. It's poorly written, there are some directorial shots that would never make a movie made by a studio, and there is some pretty cringe acting as well. The characters are paper-thin to the point I can't remember any names. The pacing is a bit off and the effects at times were notably bad.

But what did you expect on a budget under $100,000 made by amateurs? I don't feel like my time was wasted by people who used an IP as a lazy money grab. I thought the team tried and did what they could within their means.

There were a handful of cool directorial shots, a few fun kills, and some bad in an entertaining way scenes that made this at least watchable. It's a really short film that isn't an absolute chore to get through. This isn't even the worst horror film I've seen this year.

If the next time around there is a bigger budget, better writing/editing, and better casting it could be fine. A lot of their issues seemed to be budget or inexperience related as opposed to offensively bad or incompetent.

I was originally going to watch this in theaters as I do with most theatrically released horror flicks. Then I saw the bad reviews and decided not to watch it. Then I saw the extent of the bad reviews and the amount of coverage it was getting and I decided to watch it as a joke.

I can't say it made me laugh enough to make it so bad it's good. But I was in completely awe for much of the movie. My jaw dropped on numerous occasions at how bad everything is. It's completely incompetent on every level. Every filmmaking aspect is poor. There really isn't much to say.

I'll give one example of the incompetence. It's a scene from very early and is not a spoiler. The women find a gas station in the forest. It looks like it's been abandoned for decades. Broken down cars, overgrown plants, and a completely trashed inside with no electricity. The character walks in looking for a worker so they can fill up gas. I don't understand how stupid a character can be. What possible indication do you have that this is a functioning gas station?

Then to my surprise, she does find someone inside. I figure maybe he's just some homeless guy or a creep. But I guess not because two more customers walk in. I... don't... understand...

The entire movie is filled with this type of nonsense. (1 viewing, 4/23/2023)

Some horror films are so bad that they're good. This one is just bad.

Nothing is good. The acting, the writing, the plot, the complete and utter lack of even so much as an ATTEMPT at character development, was a complete mess. It's not one of those horrors that are "so bad it's good", it's just painful to sit through from beginning to end. Full of plot holes, completely lacking a protagonist, full of characters who are uninteresting and un-likeable, I can't imagine how anybody could enjoy this movie.

Everyone involved should just quit the movie industry. Their lack of talent, judgement or consideration for their audience shows no compassion or remorse.

Say, for a $100K production budget, Rhys Frake-Waterfield made a B-movie and as a result for the recent demand in independent slasher films caused by Terrifier 2 + it's a horror retelling of iconic characters, it becomes box office success. But nonetheless with no one's surprise it's absolute garbage. In my opinion with that kind of budget it's not an easy task to make a film with a decent quality. I'm impressed by the animated sequence they created for this movie and it was kinda cool. But even the decent production quality, somewhat good cinematography, visual tone, set pieces and locations overshadowed by it's very poorly written and atrocious screenplay with a bad ending, slow and tiring pacing, weak performances, lazy direction and an amateur cast with subpar acting abilities.

If there are any "real" directors reading this; there is clearly an interest in a Winnie the Pooh horror. This isn't it.

I don't even know where to start in expressing the sheer disappointment of this "film". What's worse, it doesn't appear to be an issue about the low budget - more the direction. We have all seen recently what can actually be achieved with a small budget. It would appear this "director' got very lucky with an interesting idea, but has no idea how to actually make a film.

Our cinema was about half full, but after 45 minutes I would guess half of those had left. Not because it was scary or gory or too intense - but, my guess, and along with us, bored out their minds. By about an hour in the rest of the audience had broken into conversation. We left with about 15 minutes left as just couldn't take another second.

On the way out I asked for a refund (never done that before lol). The guy behind the counter laughed and said a couple others had said the same thing.

So what's wrong with it? Well, first and foremost its not scary. It's also not funny or clever or interesting or well shot. It drags on and on with super bad acting, awful music, bad editing, bad camera work, dreadful lighting, terrible dialogue, super cheap looking costumes.... and I could probably go on.

Sometimes bad films can be a cheesy, campy good time but the absolute killer here is - it's boring.

The world of horror has some absolutely fantastic up and coming directors and its a shame someone with some talent didn't have this idea and execute it properly. But as Winnie is now public domain, maybe someone will.

And, somebody needs to ban these people from ever making another film. And, I want my money back.

As I was writing this review I came across a review in the Daily Beast by Nick Schager (full credit to him for the below and the full article can be found online/socials) that puts it so much more eloquently than I have been trying to:

"Frake-Waterfield exhibits minimal skill at framing a unique or unnerving shot, effectively transitioning between scenes, or eliciting jolts though canny cuts or audio cues. He's not helped by Vince Knight's muddy, shaky cinematography and Andrew Scott Bell's comatose score, which loses steam at precisely the moments that is should be punctuating the action.

Its difficult to fault the musicians for their lethargy, however, in light of the omnipresent amateurishness on display, almost none of which can be blamed on production constraints; though its clear that Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey was made on a shoestring budget, its failings have to do with a simple lack of talent both in front of and behind the camera.

In the weeks leading up to Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey's premiere, the writer/director has expounded on his plans to film a series of additional children's lit horror shows, with Bambi and Peter Pan next in line for the grim dark treatment. On the basis of this fiasco, however, that feels like so much wishful thinking. For all of Pooh's kills, the greatest casualty of his rampage may just be Frake-Waterfield's career prospects".