First Things First…
I’m prepared for this to be abominable.
That said, I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of horror reimaginings of fairy tales or innocent childhood stories. And Winnie the Pooh is about as innocent as it gets. Unfortunately, the buzz hasn’t been good. But maybe that doesn’t matter…
2 Things I Like
2. 100 Acre Wood
There’s a shot of the entrance into the woods, set in broad daylight, that’s dark and ominous. Regardless of its connection to the original stories and characters, these woods would be a cool setting for a horror movie.
1. Opening Animation and Hiding from Pooh
It’s never a good sign when the beginning of a movie is as good as it gets. But the opening is surprisingly effective.
The stage is set with a narrator explaining the premise of how these beloved characters—who are actually half-breeds, not fully animals—became uncivilized and feral after Christopher Robin abandoned them. The animation that accompanies this is truly creepy, especially the picture of four of these characters, starving and emaciated, closing in on Eeyore, who they’ve decided to eat.
Then, when the live action begins, Christopher Robin brings his wife to meet his old friends, unaware of what they’ve turned into. They wind up hiding from Pooh in his house and eventually escape, only to be ambushed by Piglet. That hiding and escape sequence is genuinely tense. Sadly, the tension from the women being stalked and terrorized throughout the rest of the movie never comes close to matching this.
0 Things I’m Mixed On
4 Things I Don’t Like
4. Where Are Rabbit and Owl?
Two more horrific characters might just make things worse, but it’s still worth asking—what happened to Rabbit and Owl? They were part of the group of childhood friends, and they also participated in Eeyore’s murder, and in eating him. But they’re not around during the movie. Did they leave Pooh and Piglet? Are they off haunting another part of the woods?
3. Another Victim
Speaking of extra characters making things worse, Pooh and Piglet have already been terrorizing a house full of women throughout the movie… plus the one friend who gets lost and never makes it to the house before being stuffed into a woodchipper… plus Christopher Robin, who’s been held captive and tortured since the movie’s opening scene…
But we still need to add another woman who’s also been captive, who’s had her face mutilated by Piglet, and who they free—only for her to fail to get her revenge and die gruesomely?
At what point is it overkill?
2. Nothing Characters
Maria is the main woman. We get one scene of her in her therapist’s office, where we find out she’s been traumatized by a stalker. That sets the plot in motion, as she and her friends rent a house to help her forget about it for a while.
Then, two of the women are a couple, although one is more into the relationship than the other… one of them takes a lot of selfies and doesn’t want to give up her phone, as they’ve agreed to do… Jess is kind of in charge (I guess?) … and I might even be forgetting another one. And that’s literally it. That’s all we know about them.
Horror movies are, by and large, much more effective when you get to know and care about the characters—especially as they’re being killed off. But that’s totally lacking here.
1. Angry
This feels like such an angry movie. Maybe that’s intentional, and maybe it’s effective if you want to take these beloved characters as far as possible from their source material. It just doesn’t work for me.
I might’ve been turned off by the fact that Pooh and Piglet’s anger stems from something a man did to them, but they spend the entire movie taking it out on women.
Well, they’re also torturing Christopher Robin the whole time. But it’s notable that he’s the only one they let survive, while every last woman is killed horribly.
This anger is never more apparent than as the movie ends. Despite Christopher’s pleas—even his willingness to stay with them forever if Pooh lets Maria go—Pooh refuses. After slitting Maria’s throat, he just stabs her again and again and again, and the movie ends.
Tim Matassa
