Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey Is Already Getting A Sequel

Rhys Frake-Waterfield's new slasher film "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey," while not stellar, has a novel premise. A.A. Milne's beloved characters Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Eeyore are not Christopher Robin's cuddly, talking stuffed animals, but strange, mutant animal/human hybrids that have taken up residence in the 100-Acre Wood. For years, Christopher Robin would bring his animal friends food, but when he goes away to college — and the winter winds descend — Pooh and his pals go feral from hunger and abandonment. They end up eating Eeyore, going insane, and turning into human-averse killing machines. Decades later, Pooh and Piglet have more or less become Jason Voorhees or Leatherface. 

"Blood and Honey" is a film that comes wearing its gimmick on its sleeve. How novel, one might think, to see an otherwise innocent and childlike character like Winnie-the-Pooh shoving a young ingenue's face through a pane of glass. When "Blood and Honey" was first announced, it immediately caused a stir, and audiences likely knew immediately whether or not it was something they wanted to see. 

The budget for "Blood and Honey" was reported to be as low as $100,000, and the film made nearly $2 million in its first few days of release. By any measure, that is a rousing success. As is traditional for any mildly successful slasher movie, a sequel is already being put into production. The "Blood and Honey" Twitter account, on January 30, 2023, released a teaser poster with a large, bloods-spattered number "Winnie-the-Pooh 2" in the center, and the taglines "More Blood, More Honey" and "Friends will gather ... to take revenge." One can imagine that Tigger will become involved this time, although that character won't enter the public domain for a few years yet.

No other information has yet been released, unfortunately, so one can only speculate as to the premise or setup of a second "Blood and Honey" film. Certainly, though, Winnie-the-Pooh will engage in more murderous mayhem and will bitterly take more human lives. If Frake-Waterfield continues to take cues from Milne's novels, the sequel may be titled after "The House at Pooh Corner." "The House at Pooh Coroner," perhaps? 

The sequel to "Blood and Honey" comes along with the announcement that Frake-Waterfield is also planning on making additional horror movies based on other public domain works of children's literature. In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker talked about his plans to make "Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare" as well as "Bambi: The Reckoning." In the former, Tinkerbell will be transformed into an overweight drug addict, and in the latter, the famous doe-eyed fawn will turn into a bloodthirsty carnivore. Frake-Waterfield also, thanks to the urging of some colleagues, will fold "Blood and Honey" into a shared universe with these films, opening the door for crossovers. He postulated that "Bambi vs. Pooh" might also be in the making. 

There is certainly a thrill, pleasant or unpleasant, in watching one's childhood icons be mutated into something bleak and nightmarish. Frake-Waterfield appears to be making a concerted effort to stay firmly in that niche. A franchise, it seems, has been born.