Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (stylised as Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II) is a 2024 British independent slasher film directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. It is the second of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) and a metafictional sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023). Like its predecessor, it is a horror interpretation of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh books. The film stars Scott Chambers as Christopher Robin, and Ryan Oliva as the titular character, with Tallulah Evans, Teresa Banham, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Alec Newman, and Simon Callow in supporting roles. It follows Pooh as he embarks on a murderous rampage through Christopher Robin's childhood town to seek revenge on him for revealing his existence to the world.
Following the commercial success of Blood and Honey, director Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in a sequel, which was greenlit in November 2022. The film utilizes metafictional and film within a film elements as Chambers, Oliva, and Eddy McKenzie replace original cast members Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett, and Chris Cordell in the roles of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet, respectively.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 premiered in London on 18 March 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States on 26 March. It received generally mixed reviews from critics, who nonetheless considered it an improvement over its predecessor, and grossed $7.6 million against a budget of $500,000. A prequel film, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3, is in active development.
Plot Narrowly having survived Winnie-the-Pooh's and Piglet's killing spree, Christopher Robin flees from the Hundred Acre Wood and returns to his childhood town of Ashdown to seek help; the corpses of Maria and her friends are recovered from the woods, but Christopher is believed to be responsible.
The incident is dubbed the "Hundred Acre Massacre", and a film adaptation based on the murders is released, damaging Christopher's reputation in Ashdown. Only a few people believe Christopher's story, including his childhood friends Lexy, Finn, and Aaron, his parents Alan and Daphne, and his younger sister "Bunny." Now an outcast, Christopher has nightmares about Pooh and goes to his hypnotherapist Mary Darling to deal with a trauma in which his twin brother Billy was kidnapped many years ago during their birthday party, and was never seen again.
Meanwhile, in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh and Piglet are forced to hide with fellow creatures Tigger and Owl when their home is burned down. After slaughtering three university students in a recreational vehicle, Owl tries to convince Pooh to attack Ashdown instead of waiting for more people to come to the woods. Some hunters, among them Aaron, ambush the creatures and shoot Piglet in the head as revenge for the deaths of Maria's group. Pooh murders them in retaliation and reconsiders Owl's proposal, but Aaron survives and returns to Ashdown.
Following the town's negative backlash, Christopher gets fired from the hospital and then comes back with Mary to undergo further hypnotherapy. When Aaron arrives at the local hospital for treatment, Christopher suspects the attack was done by Pooh, which is confirmed when he asks Aaron what happened. He also encounters hospital janitor Cavendish, whom he recognises as the man who kidnapped Billy, and confronts him in his house. Cavendish reveals that he worked for Dr. Arthur Gallup, a scientist who employed him to kidnap children—among them Billy—around Ashdown for experiments with animal genes in exchange for settling his debts. The children became animal-human hybrids with enhanced healing factors, whom Gallup killed and buried in the Hundred Acre Wood. Cavendish subsequently killed Gallup and learnt the children resurrected/dug themselves out of their graves. Cavendish burns the last evidence linking him to Gallup and kills himself out of guilt.
As night falls, Pooh, Tigger, and Owl embark on a rampage throughout Ashdown and murder several residents on the way, including Finn. Pooh personally murders Alan and Daphne and attacks Lexy while she is babysitting, but she survives the ordeal. The creatures then arrive at a rave party in an abandoned warehouse and slaughter all the partygoers. Christopher rushes to the warehouse, where he shoots Tigger, and learns Bunny was supposedly kidnapped. He returns to the Hundred Acre Wood and fights Pooh, who easily subdues him as they stumble across Billy's own grave. Christopher calls Pooh—actually known as Billy—by his real name. Lexy intervenes and stalls Pooh long enough for Christopher to murder him with an axe. Video footage of Pooh is passed to the police, who found Bunny in her room unharmed, and Christopher is subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Christopher and Bunny are reunited and escorted home by the police.
In a mid-credits scene, Owl and Tigger, having survived, recover the corpses of Pooh and Piglet, with Owl vowing to find a way to bring them back and that they will get their revenge on Christopher, once and for all.
Cast Additionally, Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett, Chris Cordell, Natasha Tosini, Maria Taylor, Danielle Ronald, Amber Doig-Thorne and Natasha Rose Mills appear as Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Lara, Maria, Zoe, Alice and Jess respectively, in archival footage from Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, with Tosini also appearing as a raver whose head is sawed off by Pooh. Cameo appearances of Bambi, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, a Heffalump and Rabbit are made in drawings during the end credits.
Production
Development In a June 2022 interview with Josh Korngut of Dread Central, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield expressed interest in creating a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, and stated that he wants to "ramp it up even more and go even crazier and go even more extreme". In November 2022, he announced that a sequel, currently titled Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, was in development, with him returning as director. In September 2023, teaser images were released showing the addition of character Owl, who only appeared in the first movie's prologue. The film features a new cast and new character designs, and takes place in the town of Ashdown rather than the Hundred Acre Wood. Additionally, the character Tigger, who was absent from the first film, appears since going in the public domain in January 2024. In 2023, it was revealed that Frake-Waterfield intended to have Pooh wield a chainsaw as a weapon in the film, and that the film would feature over thirty deaths. With a larger budget, Frake-Waterfield and Scott Chambers aimed to take the sequel into the direction that they were unable to go with the first film.
Writing
The film's screenplay was written by Matt Leslie. Frake-Waterfield felt it was important to address the criticisms they had received from the first film, especially as it had never even been intended for a theatrical release. He spent time gathering fan feedback, such as putting out polls on Instagram asking what the audience wanted to see in the film. Among the audience's requests was the inclusion of the game Poohsticks, which Pooh and Owl can be seen playing a twisted version of at one point in the film. While a large portion of his audience requested the traditional woodland setting in the Hundred Acre Wood, some requested a small town setting. This led Frake-Waterfield to decide to do a mix of both settings. While there was an opportunity to add in all of the characters, Frake-Waterfield chose to limit the amount to four to ensure quality. Tigger was added to the cast due to fan feedback, while Frake-Waterfield decided to include Owl as he felt he would bring something unique to the group; being an owl, he could fly, and would serve as the "wise one". The film took inspiration from Terrifier 2. The decision was also made to retcon the first film into a film within a film, meaning that while the events of the first film happened in-universe, the film is intended to be an adaptation based on those events. This allowed them to change the designs of the creatures, recast certain characters, and change the story to fit what they thought was best. Frake-Waterfield additionally wanted to feature Christopher Robin as the central protagonist after the character was sidelined to a secondary role in the first film.
After two months of collecting information, Frake-Waterfield and Leslie created a very detailed 20-page script treatment full of ideas and scenes they wanted in the film, such as exploring the origins of Pooh and his friends. One idea they briefly considered was more supernatural, with the soil of the Hundred Acre Woods creating the creatures. The idea was discarded as they felt it was too similar to Pet Sematary, and went down a scientific route involving the creatures being human children who were experimented on by a mad scientist, among them the twin brother of Christopher. This allowed them to create more interesting characters and subplots, such as Cavendish. Despite the similarities, the idea was not taken from Five Nights at Freddy's (which released in October 2023, a month after principal photography on Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 concluded). Each of the characters in the film -- Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl and Tigger -- were inspired by various horror movie villains Frake-Waterfield and Chambers had grown up watching; Pooh was inspired by a mix of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees for being a silent, hulking brute who prefers to kill as quickly as possible, Piglet was inspired by Leatherface for his large appearance and wearing an apron, Owl was inspired by Pinhead for his habit of monologuing, and Tigger was inspired by a combination of Freddy Krueger, Pennywise and Art the Clown for being a lot more sadistic than the others. By June 2023, the script was completed.
Casting By September 2023, Scott Chambers, Ryan Oliva, Talluah Evans, Peter DeSouza Feighoney and Simon Callow were reported to have been cast in the film. Eventually, Marcus Massey and Eddy MacKenzie were added to the cast.
Chambers, Oliva, and MacKenzie took over the roles of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet from Nikolai Leon, Craig David Dowsett and Chris Cordell, respectively. When recasting Christopher, Frake-Waterfield requested Chambers for the role. Chambers was hesitant as he was producing the film at the same time, as well as the huge amount of negative backlash they had received from the first film (most of which was targeted towards Frake-Waterfield), but accepted his request nonetheless. In portraying Christopher, Chambers aimed to bring hope and vulnerability into the character; "Because he starts in a place where he's uncertain about where his life is going to progress to, who he can and can't trust, and all these kinds of things. I was to keep that flame going. There's hope. He's trying to be positive, but everyone else around him is pulling him down."