Horror has proven itself to be a huge fan of jumping on any moderately successful bandwagon and then running it into the ground as quickly as humanly possible, but we can only hope the dismal reactions to Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey will cut the latest would-be craze off at the knees.
Grinch-inspired slasher The Mean One may have gotten out of the gate first, but it was writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s gore-drenched spin on the iconic residents of Hundred Acre Wood that captured the online imagination. Riding a wave of buzz and momentum, Blood and Honey proved to be a massively profitable sensation after earning $4 million from theaters on a paltry budget of just $100,000.
Before you knew what was happening, Bambi: The Reckoning was plunged into development, with Frake-Waterfield threatening that he had his eyes on everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Teletubbies as his next port of call. However, the insatiable demand for seeing children’s favorites reinvented as terrifying murderers could be set to slow down after Rotten Tomatoes officially named Blood and Honey as one of the worst films of all-time.
With a miserly four percent score from upwards of 50 reviews, the blood-soaked overhaul of Winnie the Pooh comfortably sits among the aggregation site’s 100 lowest-rated features. That’s pretty much exactly what it deserves, but you get the distinct impression it could end up being worn as a badge of honor, while the sky-high profit margins more than likely guarantee that sequel we keep being threatened with is destined to happen.