Just the Ticket #188: Winnie-the-Pooh—Blood & Honey II
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.
So, I guess it's really happening, Ticketholders! The Twisted Childhood Universe is officially named and officially happening. Too bad the marketing for it was...too bad. I had to find out about the Blood & Honey sequel (which I'm reviewing today) from an obscure genre news site via Google that was reporting on the upcoming release of Bambi: The Reckoning (again, damned if I would have known about it otherwise), which led me to Blood & Honey II and the Wikipedia page for the TCU/Poohniverse (not to be confused with Texas Christian University, and proving definitively that director/producer/Cinematic Universe overseer Rhys Frake-Waterfield is willing and able to be both dead-serious and piss-takingly tongue-in-cheek about this endeavor in equal measure), through which I learned that Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare also already exists and was released after Blood & Honey II (where in the prolapsing ass was the marketing for that‽), so now, I have to wait until I get to my Neverland: Hook Omnibusted before I can talk about that movie because I said so. Frake-Waterfield also has plans for a Pinocchio entry, a crossover, a Sleeping Beauty film, a third Pooh film, a Tigger spinoff, and Snow White, Alice In Wonderland, and Mary Poppins films. It's not confirmed on the Wikipedia page, but I remember from my original Blood & Honey review that he also wanted to do a killer Teletubbies movie at some point. And after watching Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey II, I am more certain than ever that I would watch all of them. So market the damned things better, Rhys you ambitious git!
Full stop, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey II is an exponentially better movie than the first by every possible metric. It's not perfect, to be clear. If you're expecting there to be sensible continuity between films, prepare to be disappointed or overdose on copium to make yourself feel better. The villains talk now (so that "abandoning their humanity and speech" plot point from the original?),
The increase in villain dialogue even plays into one of the film's biggest improvements: the special effects. Rather than just being obvious people in stiff rubber heads and colored gloves, the hybrids are now a mix of practical prosthetics, optical effects, and shockingly good CGI for a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey. I mean, the creative team could have gone with a safer option to bring into live action, like Rabbit. Some facial prosthetics, ears, and a body suit, and bingo, right? But no; these maddies went with Owl and Tigger instead, and they cooked hard! Granted, Owl isn't an owl (there's a scene where he vomits acid on a guy's face, so naturally, I wanted to know what kind of owl vomits acid, and according to Google, the answer is...a turkey vulture), and it's hard to distinguish Pooh from Tigger given the similar base facial apppliances, and the editing and lighting in some scenes (plus Tigger has claws and his entire personality is that he says "bitch" a lot, so he's just a furry Freddy Kreuger in this, which is disappointing considering how much he's built up early on—and that there is a child character named Freddy who's obsessed with horror movies and has his own prop glove), but Owl flies in this. He has functioning wings. Tigger has a fully animated tail. And it isn't just the villains that are on another level; the gore is amazing, too. Practical blood, convincing dismemberment and beheading effects, a cool melted face prosthetic, and an early bear trap kill that was as creative and unexpected as it was gruesome to behold.
After Christopher Robin survived the events that inspired the first movie at the cost of two love interests, four incompetent badasses, and a handful of horny disposable coeds by being a tortured, stupid, whiny little twat, he was blamed for the massacre even though people in Ashdown know the hybrids exist and frequently reenact the plot of Hatchet II in an effort to hunt them down (including the part where the hunters die horribly from being physically and mentally outmatched), and it became such a media sensation that a shitty movie was made about it. Now, with Rabbit having been the latest winter sacrifice and the hunters and tourists getting a bit too close to Pooh Corner for their own good, the villains decide to take the fight to humanity...later. Meanwhile, Christopher Robin's notoriety is affecting his job prospects in the medical field, and he's seeing a hypnotherapist (who I'm convinced is supposed to be the same character as Maria's therapist from the first movie, and is some kind of secret mastermind in the events of the Poohniverse) to sort out the truth behind his childhood. After searching the internet on Milne (where we see an article about a zombie deer rampaging in the nearby town of Bamdi), Christopher puts together that the hybrids he met in the Hundred Acre Wood as a child were discarded genetic experiments connected to an abduction he witnessed at his birthday party...and that Pooh may be his missing brother‽
The writing in this movie Chekov's pretty hard, which I appreciated. But that also means there are a number of elements that seemingly get introduced solely for the purpose of paying something off later. Christopher has a girlfriend of sorts (more like a friend-girl, as there's trust between them, but no intense romantic interest) who babysits the tech-savvy horror fanatic Freddy just so they can watch Blood & Honey on accident to establish it isn't really canon, and to show the cops video proof of Pooh having been in the kid's house. She has a female friend who's holding a rave later just so Tigger can have a neon setpiece to slaughter a bunch of people. Christopher has a sister named Bunny just so there's refrigeration motivation for him to not be a bitch (which, yeah, I like the new Christopher Robin; he's kind of a Final Bro here, and his new actor has actual emotional range that he can competently convey) and the audience can make that Rabbit connection. None of these things really has anything to do with the others or the main plot; they merely exist to be seen as important later when they remind us that they happened. And Bunny just pops up safe and sound at the end with no explanation, meaning that there were never any stakes or consequences for the characters with plot armor. I do hope there was some offscreen stuff with her (like genetic tampering‽) that becomes a twist in a future installment, but I must remember that even in better movie franchises (like Chucky or the MCU), speculation is a fool's errand. And no matter the quality, I continue to be an errand-running fool.
I appreciate this movie so much, and I actually had fun and enjoyed watching it; infinitely more fun than I expected to have going into it.
B-
Next week is going to be a treat as well, so Stay Tuned for tomorrow's Time Drops to find out about that, and as always, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, stay out of the woods after dark, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can make a sequel to this post with five times the budget (which is still zero, so I can pocket five times the profit!), and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
Ticketmaster,
Out Of the Woods.
Ticketmaster,
Out Of the Woods.
Comments
Post a Comment