Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey 2 (2024)

Episode 495, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m  Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, this actually came as a request from one of our patrons, Jessica. And it’s a good thing she did request this, because I don’t think you and I would have voluntarily done this movie. Who knows? We probably would have gotten to it.

We’ve done a lot of strange things on this. But I think you and I bo- well, I don’t know. I’m just gonna speak for me right now, is I have not been at all interested in this twisted childhood universe of- Mm-hmm … public domain, you know, pre-Disney character childhood favorites like Winnie the Pooh and Bambi and Pinocchio and all that stuff they’re making horror movies of.

Because of the first of these, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, I didn’t watch it, but I saw screenshots from it and I read the reviews and it sounded like it was absolute garbage. That’s what everybody said about it, and sounded like a quick cash grab. And it was produced by a guy who does these just quickie direct-to-video movies for, like, $10,000.

You know, they shoot them in like 5 to 10 days and put them on the shelves. Which, don’t get me wrong, this is a very respectful thing to do. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: sure. It’s fine. It, it makes money and it has an audience, and I actually enjoy a lot of those films. So I’m not knocking the idea that you will take something that’s coming out, make a cheap copy of it, or do something quirky and clever like this, but not put m- many resources into it, you know, and throw it out there not expecting it to do much, but at least hoping to make some money off of it.

That’s fine, but, uh, it’s not typically the kind of thing I want to sit down and watch usually. So I, I didn’t give it this much credit at all. And then to see that they made a sequel of it, I was like, “Oh my God, of course.” You know? Just the, the weirdness of it gave them… I think that movie had $50,000 budget and it grossed over 7 million.

This movie had a $500,000 budget and grossed about 7 million worldwide. So you know, there’s an audience for it. But the first one is not well reviewed. It’s like 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. This one is closer to 50, and I have to say, I was actually surprised. This wasn’t what I was expecting. I guess the more money that went into it and a few talented people came on board to up things quite a bit.

And it wasn’t what I expected, let’s just put it that way. I don’t think it bears much resemblance to the original movie at all. So, you know, thanks Jessica for the request, and I’m looking forward to chatting about this with Craig. This seems like one of those movies you might have had on in the background.

Craig: No, because I could almost repeat verbatim what you just said. The first one really turned me off. Now, I was initially kind of interested when they first announced the first Blood and Honey, and you know, the story was, it was because A.A. Milne’s original characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh, the first Winnie-the-Pooh book had entered public domain, and they were gonna make a horror movie out of it.

And I thought, “Well, that’s really stupid,” but- 

Todd: Could be fun … 

Craig: it could be a lot of fun. Yeah. Right. And so I was kind of excited about it, and, you know, anything that I would see about it, it didn’t sound particularly promising once it was actually in production, and I was seeing stills and the, the guys just looked like any big slasher guy in a relatively inexpensive rubber mask.

Like it- Yeah … it didn’t look good. But I thought I’d give it a chance anyway, and it, you know, it opened in a fairly promising fashion in the same way that this one does with an animated sequence that gives the background. And just for any of you who haven’t seen the films and you’re interested in the background, the first movie, the background is that Christopher Robin didn’t meet, you know, fuzzy stuffed animal type things in the Hundred Acre Woods.

He actually met these, like, human animal hybrids or, like, anthropomorphized animals and, and befriended them and took care of them. But then when he went off to college, he abandoned them and, and there was nobody to feed them, so they starved through a harsh winter and ate Eeyore.

Which traumatized them, and they vowed never to speak again. And in the first movie, Christopher Robin wants… Like, he gets engaged and he wants to take his fiancee to meet his friends in the woods. So- … he, he takes her there and they savagely murder her and, like, I think torture him and stuff. Now, I only know beyond the animated part what happened really, because I started watching it once and I got to where the animals…

Oh, and the animals in that movie also, like, vowed to never speak. So in that movie, the first movie apparently I think, Pooh says one thing maybe, but they really don’t speak ’cause they vowed not to. I got through the animated sequence, which was promising, but then just the first five to 10 minutes after that were so bad that I turned it off and I never went back to it.

And like you, that turned me off from the rest of them. I really had not much interest, even though looking at them from afar, they seemed to be getting better, at least in terms of production quality, probably due to budget. And some of them started sounding interesting. Like, I Had heard some good things about the Bambi one.

I think it’s called, like, Bambi: The Reckoning or something like that. Right. And I had seen a couple of clips from it. It’s, it’s big time CGI, but it looks maybe kind of interesting. And then the next one that’s coming out, Pinocchio Unstrung- 

Todd: Which, a great title by the way … 

Craig: it is really good, has Robert Englund in it.

Todd: It does, really? 

Craig: Yeah. Robert Englund is Jiminy Cricket, and- Another guy, big guy in, in horror is playing Geppetto. I can’t think of him, but he’s… If you look it up right quick, Richard something maybe. You would recognize him immediately because he’s been a menacing, scary guy in a million things that we’ve reviewed.

So- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: I mean, just the attachment of those folks gives me hope that maybe they’re getting better. Okay, that was my perspective going into this. This request came at least a month ago. I have no idea when this will actually get posted, but in our timeline, this request came at least a month ago, and I think we were kind of like subtly putting it off.

And eventually I was like, “We should just, we should just do it.” I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it going in, but I was surprised too. Mm-hmm. It wasn’t what I expected either, and I would say that while I’m not gonna give it a glowing review, I’m glad I saw it. Like, I genuinely am glad I saw it, and it’s not bad.

Todd: Right. Well- 

Craig: I, I didn’t not like it. 

Todd: You did not like it. I mean, production value is great. The gore effects are fine. You know, there’s obviously some CGI supplementals in here. But I could tell that this would appeal, and I think it probably came at the right time. This seems to, I think, appeal to a crowd that The Terrifier would appeal to because it seems like the attempt here is to just keep things very extreme.

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And I guess that’s, that’s really what the writer-director/producer of the whole thing, Rhys Frake-Waterfield, had said outright. He said he wanted to make a sequel to that first one, improve it, get a much bigger budget, and take everything extreme. And at least one of the actors, I think the one who played Tigger in here, said that he took a lot of his inspiration for his character from The Terrifier, as well as Freddy Krueger and somebody else.

So- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: they had that in mind. And, you know, The Terrifier 2 I think had just come out around this time as well. So it shows, I would imagine there’s a lot of crossover between these two audiences. You know, once word gets out about how gory this is and how extreme the killings are, then probably a lot of folks, uh, who liked The Terrifier movies and were kind of on that bandwagon would jump over and want to see this.

And because it delivers on that front, I think. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: But also, the acting is good. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: I think the acting’s fine. It’s great. E- even, uh, the guy who plays Christopher Robin, who I guess is reprising his role from the first movie? 

Craig: No. Am I right about that? Okay. So this is… No. This is one of the things that I think is coolest about this movie.

They solve lots of problems from the first movie by making this movie meta. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: In that the first movie is actually a cinematic film of true events that happens to the people in this movie. Does that make sense? 

Todd: Yeah, it’s kind of like Scream and what was that one? S- Stab. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. As though, you know…

S- yes, exactly. So what we saw, the first movie that we saw was a, a filmed, uh, version, a fictionalized account of something that actually happened to the people that we are now being introduced to. So that changes… That, that solves the recast problem- Mm … because the guy in the first movie was just an actor playing the real Christopher Robin who we’re seeing now.

Um- Right … it also allows them to retcon things just by saying, “Oh, well, they changed it for the movie.” So the, the animals now can speak because, you know, the film just added that element of them vowing never to speak or whatever. And they can also justify the change in the appearance of the villains because these are the real villains, and that was just a cheap movie knockoff of them.

Mm. And they do look a lot better in this. I, I- Oh, yeah … I wouldn’t go so far as to say Pooh looks… I don’t know. I still think he could have looked better, but some of the creature design, particularly Owl, I thought was fantastic. Yeah.

Todd: He was a… I’m sorry. He was a producer Scott Chambers. He, he’s an actor too. He’s acted in a lot of movies, but he was a, a producing partner, still is I suppose, a producing partner of, um, of Rhys- uh, Frake-Water- Waterfield for a lot of those other films. So he, he produced the first film and decided to step in- Gotcha

and, uh, and act in this one. I think he does a great job, even though this is certainly not his first acting credit. He’s been in a lot of, uh, these straight to video… And I think that’s why he’s so good. I, I actually thought he was really good in this. If it weren’t for… And this movie really focuses around him.

Craig: I think he’s directing the next one, by the way. 

Todd: Oh, is that right? Okay. I think so. Yeah, they got a third one coming up, and they’ve got two released last year, right? The Bambi one and the Peter Pan. There’s a Peter Pan. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And then the, the Pinocchio one’s coming up, if it hasn’t been released already.

Uh, it’s c- it was coming up this year at, at least. You are right. And they wanna do crossover movies. They wanna take- But I think they’re 

Craig: filming that now … 

Todd: the whole Avengers attitude. Yeah. 

Craig: They’re either filming the crossover one or Blood and Honey 3. I don’t remember. They’re filming one of them now. But yeah, they’re crossing them all over and, like, they’re treating it- They- they’re using the Marvel model- Yeah

where they start out with these individual movies, then they cross them over, bring in even more characters. Like, they’re gonna bring in, like, Mary Poppins and- … Sleeping Beauty, and there are several others. But they’re gonna bring them in in the big Avengers style one so that the, they can then spin them off into a phase two of other Uh, individual movies.

Todd: It’s, it’s so smart because when you think about it from just, even just a purely business but also creative aspect, I mean, this is why we have public domain. Disney themselves took these stories like Pinocchio- Sure … and, and, and Sleeping Beauty, you know, that they didn’t have to pay any rights to, and really owned them in a way.

You know, for childhood, like, when people think of Pinocchio they, they immediately think of Disney. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: It’s just part of the zeitgeist now. And so with these originals falling out of public domain, now somebody else can come over and kinda skirt around everything that Disney has set up. But the Disney part of it is helping to bolster these movies really- Right

because everyone’s so familiar with these stories because they’re… the Disney move- movie versions of them are so beloved for multiple generations now. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: So it makes sense to capitalize on this and do it in the same way the big studios are doing it. W- I just hear the twisted childhood universe and the idea that they’re gonna tie all these together like Marvel did, which we l- really loved.

Then I think, “Oh, you know, actually I kind of am curious just to see how they’re gonna pull this off.” It does in a way wanna nudge me towards them a little bit, especially after seeing this. Yeah. Because, uh, I think they’ll actually might do a pretty good job with it. D- don’t get me wrong, like these are still silly.

You can’t take them seriously, and they don’t take themselves seriously. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: This one is fun, and I’m- Yeah … curious to see how the others go, too. 

Craig: Well, they… It is fun. I enjoyed it. And, you know, I guess the setup for this movie is that i- in the town that the real Christopher Robin lives in, he’s like a pariah because nobody believes him that there are these animal men in the woods that killed all these people.

Mm-hmm. So they think it must have been him even though, I, I don’t know, I guess they couldn’t prove it or something, ’cause he’s not in jail or anything. Like, he’s- 

Todd: Yeah. That’s a little weird. He’s just allowed to roam free, but everybody thinks he’s a murderer. Like, what? 

Craig: Okay. R- right, like a mass murderer.

Right. 

Todd: Not like there was an OJ Simpson trial or anything. 

Craig: But instead they’re just all being real mean to him. Except for his gorgeous girlfriend and his lovely parents. Uh, he’s living with his parents and his little sister, Bunny. 

Clip: Hello. You know Mom has been calling you for ages. She’s getting annoyed.

Hello? She calls me Ella, and my name is Bunny. I mean, you’ve got two names, which is absolutely fine. Nope, just Bunny. And just Ella. Just Bunny.

What are you doing up here then? What’s all this? Before you get mad, I asked Mom and she said it was fine. What was fine? Is that Billy’s teddy- Did you go in Billy’s room and get that? Mom said Billy would’ve wanted me to have it. Okay, Bunny, in future, you really need to ask me before you just go in there and take stuff.

Okay? Why? It’s not your bear. Besides, I’m doing this to protect us. Protect us from what? Girls at school told me you’re crazy ’cause you believe there are scary animal people in the Hundred Acre Wood. 

Todd: Bunny. 

Craig: But the… A- and then the premise of the movie is, I guess, there’s a group of hunters who do believe him because-

they go out into the woods looking for these animals or whatever, and they find them. And one of them, I was surprised by this, ’cause I knew that Pooh and Piglet were in the first one, and I think you see them right in the very beginning. I think that’s part of the reason that I turned it off. I knew they were in the first one, so I knew they were in this one, and I knew they were introducing more characters from the books in this one, too.

But so I was shocked when almost immediately Piglet gets his head blown off. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Oh. By one of the, by one of the hunters. And then Pooh, I think, maybe kills the rest of them, and I think Owl is there, too. I don’t remember if he helps or if he’s just kind of watching in the background. But then Owl, who appears to be, like, the evil mastermind behind all of this- He’s like a leader

which I think is a really clever thing. Like, you know- The wise owl. The wise owl. Like, in the Disney version… I don’t know that I’ve ever actually read the books. I, you know, I, I, I loved the original Winnie-the-Pooh movie, which was actually just three shorts stitched together. I loved that. That, I think that was, like, my favorite Disney movie when I was a kid.

I watched it over and over and over again. And in the Disney version, Owl thinks he’s really wise, but he’s really just kind of doddering and, and goofy. Yeah. But I think it’s clever to take, you know, the wise, old owl approach and make him, like, this sadistic, psychotic mastermind. 

Clip: Look what our lives have become.

Each day we get weaker and weaker. But remember, remember what happened last time. Pooh, it’s time to decide. Either we take the fight to them and perhaps survive,

or we lay down and die 

Craig: You know, we’ve gotta take the fight to them. And so they do, and then that’s the point where before we officially started the show, before we started recording, I said to you, ’cause you said, “I’m, I’m not sure,” something along the lines of, “I’m not sure I’ll remember the details of the plot.”

And I was like, “It really doesn’t matter.” 

Todd: No. It really doesn’t. 

Craig: It really doesn’t matter. I couldn’t tell you much more plot-wise from that point on. It’s just a spectacle of creature and slasher, and it’s fun. 

Todd: It is. 

Craig: It’s really gory. It’s tongue in cheek. But, but it doesn’t pull any punches. In fact, like you said, it, it, it’s, it’s really extreme.

I think the body count in this movie is w- like 45 or something like that. And there is, like, a big terrifier, like, set piece massacre, like mass massacre. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s so terrifier because it also, it’s a rave, right? 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: It’s so silly. I mean, when, when is this movie supposed to have taken place? Because d- are raves even a thing anymore?

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: I don’t, I don’t know. Like, maybe, maybe not. I was a little shocked actually to learn that the original movie They had budgeted so little for it. But then after they had more or less shot it, they had posted some screenshots online and of course they went viral, and of course everybody was talking about it.

And it freaked the producers out because the producers really did not expect this to be a popular film. They thought they were gonna throw this on video like they do the other things, it’ll go to streaming, something like that, and it, it- nobody’s really gonna care about it and it’s, nobody’s gonna pay attention to it.

But it got so much attention that suddenly they were like, “Oh shit, so many people are gonna watch this movie. We need to reshoot this.” So they went out and, like, supposedly one of the actors said they basically reshot the movie three times. But ultimately, over 10 days and with a budget of $50,000, which they said was the mo- the biggest budgeted film that, that Reese Frank Waterfield had ever shot.

And he shot a lot of movies before this, man. We’re talking Dinosaur Hotel, The Legend of Jack and Jill, Easter Bunny Massacre- 

Craig: Oh my gosh … 

Todd: H.P. Lovecraft’s Monster Portal. Like, all these are straight to video, and all of them on budgets of less than $50,000. But of course $50,000 is still nothing compared, compared to every, to even the cheapest low-budget movies.

And so it came out and it just looked awful. Like you said, they had just masks on that they had a company make. And they got so much shit for that original movie that they were thrilled to have the huge budget of a half a million to do this movie. And so they were kind of on cloud nine shooting it and they thought they could do anything.

And apparently Shooting this whole rave scene made them so stressed out for a number of reasons that, that they were, like, vomiting on set and stuff like that. It was just a nightmare for them. 

Craig: Well, I think that they were using… I read something that said they were using maybe real animal parts. Oh, really?

And that it, the, the smell in there was horrible. And it is, I mean, it’s, it’s super gross and, and violent and, you know, regardless of the fact that ultimately you know it’s fake, it still looks gross. 

Todd: Sure. 

Craig: I can only imagine that that would’ve been a stressful scene. You know, I call it a scene, it goes on for a long time.

Todd: Oh, yeah. It’s like a, it’s like a quarter or fifth of the movie. I mean, 

Craig: it’s just long. Yeah, it goes on for a l- And there are tons of people in it. And, and we can go back. I wanna talk about specific things, but I just thought it would n- for this movie, which is, this is uncharacteristic of me, it doesn’t make sense just to go through it scene by scene because it doesn’t matter.

But, like, I- Right … I do wanna, like, I wanna talk about the different creature designs and I, other stuff like that. But so this scene comes late in the movie. I mean, this is, you know, kind of the big climactic scene. It starts out with a great big, huge rave, and then the animals, Owl, Pooh, and Tigger, it’s mostly Pooh and Tigger, I think, in there, but they’re all in there.

They come in and they just immediately start slaughtering people, and one guy gets a pole through the face, you know, the, the doorman or some guy standing right outside the door. And then I think it’s Pooh chases a girl in, and she runs in and she’s screaming and everybody’s looking at her, and then he, he has a bear trap on a chain that he launches at her, and it gets her head and he, like, rips her head off and it explodes-

all over the people in the rave. And then all of the people, a lot of the people from the rave run out, I think, but one or more of them kind of herd a group of them into a smaller space. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And when that happened, I was like, “Oh, they’re herding far too many people in here.” Like, there are still so many people to deal with.

And they just- Yeah. And, but they manage. 

Todd: They deal with them. They deal with them. They take them apart bit by bit. 

Craig: And I mean, they just slaughter them, just absolutely slaughter them in the most violent, gory, bloody, bloody ways. It’s over the top. And you know, I’m not a, I’m not the hugest fan of extreme violence like that.

Even Terrifier is borderline for me. But this is so… It is gross, and it’s as graphic as Terrifier, but it feels more tongue in cheek for some reason, and, and that softens the blow for me a little bit. I actually really enjoyed it. 

Todd: Terrifier, I won’t say Terrifier’s entirely mean-spirited. It’s, you know, there’s a comic aspect to- Art the Clown, but it’s, it’s more mean-spirited than, say, Freddy Krueger and a lot of stuff that we see.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, and, and then v- super violent to boot. This is definitely more tongue in cheek. In fact, there’s as- there are shot for shot homages to Freddy Krueger in here. I mean- Oh, yeah … the place kinda looks like a boiler room, and there’s, you know, him dragging his fingers- 

Craig: Tigger, yeah, Tigger drag- ’cause Tigger’s got these great big claws, right?

Todd: Yeah, and then again, the actor who did Tigger himself said that he d- he drew a lot of inspiration from Freddy Krueger for this, and, and he’s a little quippy. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: He seems to talk more than… Except for Al, I suppose. He seems to talk more than the others, at least talks to his victims. 

Craig: Yeah, and he quips.

You’re right. Mm-hmm. 

Todd: This also, because it takes place in what essentially is, like, a warehouse, it just feels very Terrifier because it’s r- again, like you said, it’s nothing more than just him going bit by bit and slaughtering people one at a time more or less. 

Craig: I think my favorite one, well, one of his quips, which it’s so stupid, but it made me smile, is some of the ravers are, like, looking around, and they’re like, “Oh, no, this is a dead end.

Let’s bounce.” And Tigger pops up and goes, “That’s my line.” 

Todd: I did chuckle at that one. 

Craig: And then he shoots his claw all the way, like, through the guy’s back and it comes out of his chest and- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: then he slaughters them all. But I think my favorite kill was there’s one girl, and she’s up on kinda like a catwalk or something, and Tigger comes up underneath her and starts jamming his big, like, blade-like claws up through the, the grated floor beneath her.

And eventually she falls because it, like, gets her foot or whatever, so she falls down in pain. And then he’s, like, s- stabbing up through her body from underneath. And then he gets up on top of her and is just clawing at her like a cat, and the blood is spraying everywhere and… Oh, gosh. It’s- Yeah … it’s super over the top, but I don’t know, funny.

I mean, it’s a guy, you know, like, it’s a cat guy. 

Todd: It’s, it’s cats. 

Craig: A walking, talking cat guy. It 

Todd: really 

Craig: is. It’s funny. You can’t take it seriously. A- and I kinda, I don’t know, I liked that about it. 

Todd: Yeah. That was a nice aspect to it. Watching the whole movie is– It’s interesting because they’re, they’re trying a little bit, and, and I feel like the third Terr- the third Terrifier does this, too, where they’re clearly, you know, the, the first one, it got a lot of criticism.

Apparently, it’s really, really bad, and the producers admit that, and they were like, you know, “I mean, we shot it for 50,000. What do you expect?” But this time around, especially now that they have this cinematic universe they were thinking of managing, they actually put some effort into a little bit of pathos with Christopher Robin.

And I didn’t find that this slowed the movie down too much. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: Sometimes it does. Sometimes this kinda thing feels shoehorned in or you’re like, “Well, this doesn’t even matter.” But actually, it does because there’s a nice through line here. The whole origin story for these characters as opposed to the original movie- 

Craig: Right

Todd: I mean, we can just sum it up here, I think, is that- These, there’s a mad scientist- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: who was doing genetic experiments and hired a janitor from the school to go around and kidnap children. And one of the children he kidnapped was Christopher Robin’s, uh, brother, Billy. And so he has had this traumatic event where he watched his brother be abducted by this guy in this van that he’s been dealing with his whole life.

And he’s got a psychiatrist there, and there’s a couple scenes where he goes under hypnotherapy and is able to reveal some things, which is a nice way to give you some backstory and whatnot. And then he does a little bit of research too and sort of puts the pieces together. I guess he didn’t really know about this geneticist.

I mean, it’s also silly. Right. Like, how could this actually- Yeah … happen and, and nobody knows about it, you know? 

Craig: It’s silly. I feel like isn’t there also… There are also moments of, like, omniscient narration, like we’re being told a story, and it’s like- 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: in the beginning … “And Christopher Robin made friends with Pooh, and”- 

Todd: It’s like the book

Craig: “But Christopher Robin never knew true Pooh nature,” or like he was blind to it, or he blocked it out or, or something like that. Yeah. So, like, it shows them together when they’re kids, and Christopher Robin’s like, I don’t know, skipping through the tulips, and Pooh’s, like, just standing in the background like-

covered in blood. Like “And Christopher Robin was blind to Pooh’s true nature.” Like, okay. 

Todd: It’s funny, but it’s not, like, comically funny, right? Yeah. Like, you would expect this to be eye-rollingly funny, but they do play it straight. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: And I think that helps to make the movie work. It, just the material is comic.

It, but they don’t play it that way. He’s really got this trauma. He really does this investigation. He tracks down this guy who gives him more detail, and the detail itself is absurd. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So he did these genetic experiments on these kids where he was, uh, splicing them with animal genes, so they ended up as these weird animals.

But then they end up getting killed, or what, they die? He killed them. What is it? They- 

Craig: He killed them. 

Todd: He killed them. The, um, the, the scientist or the- 

Craig: The sci- … the janitor? The scient- Well, I don’t know. The scientist- 

Todd: Killed 

Craig: them … either killed them himself or, or made the other guy kill them. I don’t know, but they killed them.

Todd: Right, and then buried 

Craig: them. Because it worked. Like, that’s, that… What he was trying to do, I don’t know if they were getting out of control. I think it was just, like, he realized the horror of what he had done or something, and so he killed them all. Now, remember- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: listener, that these are kidnapped children.

So- … these aren’t just lab creations. These are kids that were kidnapped from their homes and now are, you know, are animal hybrids or whatever. So they kill them, and then they bury them in the Hundred Acre Wood, but they they regenerate and crawl out of their graves. 

Todd: Like zombies. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: So these are actually zombies when you think about it.

Craig: I guess. 

Todd: I suppose, like they originally were gonna go with a supernatural angle for all this and then decided against it. So this still is kinda supernatural though. 

Craig: I, see, and I, I thought, now, and I don’t think it’s explicit either way, but I thought just more it was a result of the genetic tampering.

Like, they could just regenerate for, for whatever reason. But I don’t know. 

Todd: Well, that’s what, uh, that’s what I kind of interpreted too. But it is a bit of like, um, Five Nights at Freddy’s, isn’t it? Sure. It’s, uh, it’s a little similar to the plot of that. I mean, I’m not saying that the one inspired the other, certainly not.

But, um, it’s definitely weird like that movie was weird in its backstory, and you just kinda have to go with it because it doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter. It just, just gives you a reason for these murderous animals to be out there. 

Craig: Well, and it, I mean, it’s, it’s kind to establish pathos and, like, there is, you know, whatever.

I mean, Christopher Robin, I mean, who deserves to be, have their whole family slaughtered? What I was going to say was, yeah, y- y- Christopher Robin is clearly the hero. He didn’t really do anything wrong. He lost his brother and has been haunted by that all this time. So you do feel bad for him and, and though I said the movie is maybe a little bit more tongue in cheek than something like Terrifier, it also doesn’t really pull any punches.

I was kind of surprised when, I think it was Pooh, brutally murdered both of Christopher Robin’s parents- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: and kidnapped his little sister, ’cause his parents were super nice and supportive. They were 

Todd: just lovely people. 

Craig: Yeah. Like, they, you know, they, they took in their pariah son and totally, you know, believed him or, or I don’t know i- whether they believed him or whether they were just coddling him.

But they were super, super nice. Yeah, they, that, that didn’t save them. 

Todd: Well, his mother’s kill was my favorite. I- She’s pulling out the dishwasher at the same time that Pooh comes into the house, and then he just bas- And, and there’s knives knife side up, which I don’t know, when you load the dishwasher, I, I don’t know- No

I always put a knife, the knife with the blade side down. 

Craig: Obviously. Well, if for no other reason than this, like- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: but they, they so heavily projected this. Like, that was one of the very first- Oh, of course … things you saw in the movie was this huge knife, you know, and sticking up from the dishwasher, and the mom’s like I don’t remember.

She’s like, “Those silly boys never load it right,” and turns it over or whatever. I’m like, “Well, that’s obvious.” Yeah. 

Clip: Yep. 

Craig: It still looked good, though. But it, it was funny, though, that when… I don’t remember what happened. Did he trip her or push her or throw 

Todd: her? Pushed her down into it. Like, just… Well, first he, he sm- smashes her face down into it, and she stands up, and I think this is what you’re saying, right?

Like, the knives are comically… Like, they’re sticking out of her face in all different directions, which doesn’t make any sense. 

Craig: And it’s not just one knife. That was what was comical about it. Yeah. Like, the setup was one big knife. Now it’s, like, five or six knives poking out of her face. Ugh, it was pretty funny.

Todd: But then there’s apparently a knife or two left over down there, because then he pulls her head down and slowly pushes- Oh, yeah … her eyeball down onto another knife, and it’s like, oh, God, like, they really just wanted to keep going with this, you know? Just make it as brutal as possible. And yeah, so we got the n- we got several n- eye injury scenes in this one.

That’s the way to go when you’re, when you wanna cringe, I think. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. A- 

Todd: and yeah, it looked pretty good. I, I liked that bit just ’cause I thought it was a little silly and fun and cringey at the same time. 

Craig: Oh, I liked it, too. I, yeah, it was a… That was a good one. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I wouldn’t s- you know, I thought all of the kill scenes, you know, all of the violence, it all looked good, and it was creative and interesting, and the aftermath was gross.

Todd: There’s a lot of beheading, a lot of ripping limbs off. 

Craig: A lot of heads, like, blowing up or, like, parts of them getting chopped off or… A lot of head trauma. 

Todd: It’s funny how they would even cut away. Like, when the… So when, when Christopher Robin confronts the janitor and he tells this whole story, he’s also burning all of his evidence, and then he says, you know, “Forgive me.

May God forgive me for what I did,” and he whips out a gun and, and blows his, his head off. And, uh, they didn’t show that, but they showed the aftermath really close up. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: So, you know, even when they didn’t show violence on screen, you think, “Okay, well, they’re trying to pull a punch here,” or they’re, or they’re trying to save some money or whatever.

No, they would always be another shot that would show you the aftermath in all of its close-up, bloody gory- Yeah … g- uh, glory, so. 

Craig: Pooh had, like, a, a penchant for just, like, breaking people’s bones, right? Like- 

Todd: Yeah, like that 

Craig: girl that- I feel like there were… I feel like he does it a couple of times. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: He just kind of…

I don’t know. He’ll get a person, I think it was both times girls, but I don’t remember, down on the ground, and then he’ll just, like, stand on their arms or legs and snap them with- Snap 

Todd: them, yeah. 

Craig: Ugh, it’s crazy. It’s really, really violent. 

Todd: It is. 

Craig: So okay, obviously, you know, Christopher Robin, I guess you’re rooting for him or whatever.

He’s the good guy. But, uh, ultimately- 

Todd: He can’t do anything. 

Craig: Well, he can’t really do anything, but you also should feel for the bad guys. I mean, they’re psychotic murderers now, but- They’re victims … ultimately, as it turns out, Winnie-the-Pooh is Christopher Robin’s kidnapped brother, Billy. Yeah. So yeah, psychotic murderer, but also kidnapped child, mutated and left for dead in a grave in the woods.

Todd: Who came back to life. No wonder he’s so pissed, you know? 

Craig: You know, I, to say that it adds depth to the movie would be giving it far too much credit, but at least it kind of gives it an additional layer- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: to the lore, which I don’t know, I thought was interesting and not lazy. So I thought, I, I thought it was good.

Todd: Then Christopher Robin ends up in a, you know, this ends up being a big fight in the woods again. Not a big fight. I guess after they leave the rave, they just go through town and are killing people for a while until they make their way back to where Christopher Robin lives and get his parents and- 

Craig: And steal his sister

Todd: his sister. Steal his sister and take her into the woods, so Christopher chases after them into the woods, right? I don’t remember what happens to his sister. 

Craig: I don’t either. Does 

Todd: she escape? 

Craig: I think, or, or he saves her. I don’t know, maybe it’s in my notes. I have Pooh arrives at the rave or, or he’s been there or whatever, and he, like, burns some ravers up in a furnace, and he saws a girl’s head off.

And then I guess Christopher Robin has been making his way to the rave. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And he’s there, and Pooh confronts him in the rain with a chainsaw. 

Todd: Yes. The chainsaw, which then becomes a flaming chainsaw. 

Craig: I know. And th- well, they have a big fight, like a big fight, and Christopher Robin has a big pole, but Pooh has a chainsaw.

But then, yeah, w- I don’t remember why the chainsaw catches on fire, but it’s hilarious. There’s something about the fire. Oh my God. Because then it stays on fire- … for a while. But just like the e- like, like three quarters of the end of the chain part. But it’s amazing. I mean- I know … you can’t really go wrong with a flaming chainsaw.

Todd: No. And this has gotta be… That seems like something I would find in a video game, but I was trying to remember if I have ever seen this in a movie before. We’ve seen a lot of chainsaws, but a flaming chainsaw? 

Craig: Probably at some point. You think so? I don’t know. Oh, no. Well, or at least a, you know, maybe a guy with a chainsaw and the guy’s on fire.

I don’t know. 

Todd: There’s probably- 

Craig: Sh- of all the movies we’ve seen, surely- One of the Leatherface 

Todd: ones … 

Craig: yeah, I don’t know. Who knows? 

Todd: Yep, so he’s chasing with a flaming chainsaw, and I really grinned at that. I was like, “Oh, this is great.” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And eventually they’re face to face and he calls him Billy. He’s put two and two together already, I believe.

But they end up kind of at his grave, which I guess is still open. 

Craig: Apparently. 

Todd: Oh, I think this is when he lets the little girl go, and Christopher has an ax. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Right? And I guess just calling him by name really stops Pooh in his tracks, which allows Christopher to swing the ax up towards his head. And as he’s doing that, he says the, the, Pooh says, “Oh, bother.”

Craig: Yeah, that was really funny. 

Todd: And gets hit in the head and split open. I mean, Pooh’s dead now. I was like… And then falls backwards into the grave, and I’m thinking- I thought they were planning sequels to this. Like- 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: well- … you’ve killed off Piglet … 

Craig: that’s easy. I mean, you can always bring… Yeah, but you can always bring them back.

Todd: Yeah, but they split their heads right open. I mean, one guy got his head blown off. True. The other one got it split open. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I guess they will bring him back. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, it ends, I mean, it ends right here. It, it ends, you know, happy and Christopher Robin and Bunny, the sister’s name is Bunny, which I thought was gonna be, like, an in thing.

Like, I th- ’cause that’s not her real name. I don’t remember what her real name is, but she wants everybody to call her Bunny. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And she’s also, like, she’s really… I mean, she’s a little girl, but she’s really sweet and, and pretty and blonde and, you know, cute, cute little kid, but she’s also kind of a weirdo.

Like She, she does weird things with Christopher Robin’s old stuffed animals and stuff and I don’t know, she’s kind of weird. So I kind of wondered if they were setting her up to be Rabbit in future films. Mm. But I asked AI and they said no, because apparently after it seems like, you know, the day is won and the, the happy music plays and it fades to black, there’s a mid-credits scene where it goes back to, I don’t know, the lair, I guess, the animal’s lair.

And Owl has a whole big monologue about how… Well, first of all, he’s got Pooh’s body, like, sitting on what looks… I mean, it’s a chair, but it, it’s framed almost like a throne. It’s back lit and, you know, his head’s cleaved open or whatever. And Piglet’s body is there, too. He says something, I don’t know, he has a whole big monologue about how, like, our strength is our friendship or something, and he talks about how he’s going to bring them back and he’s, “We’ll all be back for you, Christopher Robin.”

And then that’s the end. So I guess we are to believe that either Owl is going to do something to bring them back, or I think it would make more sense that as they have done before, they just regenerated and just came back to life. Could be. But, but either way, they are coming back. And, and then the end credits were fun because it was, like, storybook illustrations, simple pencil illustrations of, of future projects.

So you had Pinocchio and Peter Pan and, I don’t know, whoever else we talked about earlier. And that was kind of a fun, you know, preview of what was to come. I, I’m not trying to wrap up because there are still other things that I wanted to talk about, but ultimately when the movie was over, I was like, I was like, “Well, that…”

I, I really, I, I, especially when we’re watching these for the podcast, one of the first things I think about is, I wonder what Todd will think, and I, I didn’t know, but I suspected that you might feel the same way that I was. I, uh, that I did. I didn’t wanna spoil it for you, so all I texted you was, “I watched it.

I was surprised.” That’s, that’s all I said. But ultimately, like, I was surprised, and pleasantly so. You’re right that I probably never would have watched this had it not been requested. God, again, it sounds like I’m wrapping up, and I’m not, because I, I, I, I specifically wanna talk about Owl. But I would go so far as to recommend this to anybody who considers themselves a, any kind of horror fan, like somebody who really likes horror movies.

Todd: Loves Winnie-the-Pooh. 

Craig: Maybe. You know. Yeah, yeah. Like you said, you know, Winnie-The-Pooh, and, and this is true of all of these Public domain properties that they have, it is smart to capitalize on them because there’s going to be at least a curious audience. You know, people who are familiar with the stories from whatever medium, whether it be the original fairy tales or more likely in our generation and, and probably a couple of generations before us and after, are gonna be familiar with the, the Disney versions.

But I would think lots of people our age specifically, but maybe even our parents’ age, would be at least curious to see what’s going on because they’re familiar with the characters, they’re familiar with the property. So, uh, I, I don’t know. If somebody said, “Oh, I love Winnie-the-Pooh,” I wouldn’t immediately say, “Oh, you should watch- Go see Blood and Honey

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.” Little 

Todd: girl. 

Craig: Um, but if they, I also knew that they were a fan of horror, I would say, “Oh, you should check out the second one.” 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I, I guess it’s not really fair to recommend skipping the first one when I haven’t seen it, but what I saw of it and what I’ve read about it I don’t think that I’ll be going back and watching.

I, I, I considered it. I considered putting it on last night as I was going to bed. I, I felt a- almost an obligation for the podcast- For 

Todd: research purposes … 

Craig: but I couldn’t bring my, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Uh, and I, and I don’t think that I will. But, uh, this one I would go so far as to recommend. 

Todd: I would too, uh, especially if you’re into, uh, extreme violence.

Like I said, I think, uh, fans of the Terrifier franchise, there’s a lot of parallels here. It seems like they’re going for the same vibe. Whereas Terrifier, I believe, especially the first one, is so paper thin on plot and characterization that it’s just nothing but a series of kills. This is really not far off from that.

The only difference is, like I said, that they’re clearly setting up the Christopher Robin character as a, an important element for whatever they have planned for the future. So yeah, no, I really, I really enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, and we’ve seen a lot of movies that I’ve just rolled my eyes at and kept occupied with something else while I’ve got it going and, you know, it just feels like a slog to get through.

This movie really didn’t feel like that. It kept moving- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: and it kept my interest even though it was rather silly. Uh, yeah, so I would, I would also recommend it. What, what do you want to say about Owl? 

Craig: I was just so impressed with that character and the design. It reminded me… I, I read somebody compared it to the Creeper from Jeepers Creepers and- 

Todd: Oh yeah, there’s a little bit of that there

Craig: I don’t, I don’t know. I, I was just so impressed, like the, the mask, the, the layering of the feathers. I don’t know. He, he didn’t even necessarily really look like an owl. It looked almost more like, not a crow, but maybe like a, a vulture or some other kind of, like a, like a carrion bird hunched like that, and, and a great voice.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I can’t even remember it specifically enough to imitate it, but I, I saw some people comparing it to Pinhead It reminded me, ’80s children except for Todd, it reminded me a lot of that really, really scary goblin in, in Legend. Oh, yeah. Kinda the, the, Darkness’ kind of main henchman from, from Legend. It reminded me of that a lot.

I, I’ve already said I liked the characterization, that he’s like this psychopath mastermind who really seems to be not manipulating necessarily, but leading the charge of these others. Like, these others seem to be taking his suggestions. They’re, you know, they’re… He, he seems to be the leader. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Or the brains.

I guess the brains of the- The brains 

Todd: behind the operation, yeah. 

Craig: Right. Uh- ‘

Todd: Cause there’s nobody, like there’s no plan here. There’s nobody, you know, it’s just like, “Let’s go.” 

Craig: You know? Yeah, he basically just sends them in, you know? Yeah. He kind of sends them in as the front line, and he kills some people and, you know, like it’s so gimmicky, but I, I liked that he got one girl, I think it was a girl, down on the ground and stood on her chest and puked acid puke onto her face.

Todd: Acid. That was- I liked 

Craig: it. 

Todd: Yeah. He’s gotta have a thing, right? I guess. I was thinking about birds, you know how they regurgitate food for their young, and maybe this was a loose adaptation of that in a horror movie. Yeah, 

Craig: yeah. Right. I totally thought of it as a bird thing. Uh- Mm-hmm. And it was humorous in an amusing way, not a ha-ha way, but an amusing way, and also gross and, and different and fun.

Everything. I, I… If they made an owl spinoff, which I doubt they will, but if they did- Yeah … I would watch it because I was really intrigued by him as a character, and I loved that he could fly. I loved the flying shots- Yeah … you know, that were not from his perspective, but like tracking with him as he was flying, like through the forest and stuff.

I know this movie had a bigger budget, but even for the limited budget that they had, I thought that stuff like that looked good. It made it look a little bit more expensive than it was, I think. So that’s specifically what I wanted to say about him. Tigger, I, I liked the look of, you know, his claws, like you s- And it was very inspired by and reminiscent of Freddy Krueger, even in the cinematography.

Like you said, it’s in almost like a boiler room setting and lit in the way that those dream sequences in the boiler room were because it’s at a rave, so it can have colored lighting everywhere. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And there are the dragging of the claws, the taunting, you know, the, the verbal quips and taunts, but also just the way that it was shot.

There were a lot of really extreme close-ups on Tigger’s face, as they used to do with Freddy in those earlier films. And, and, you know, he was sadistic, and his mask looked s- looked great. The only complaint that I had about it was that I think that he and Pooh were in almost identical outfits. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I sometimes had a hard time telling which one was which.

Like, if they were shot kind of from afar, like if it wasn’t in close-up, I was like, “Wait, which one is this?” Pooh was fatter. 

Todd: Right. But their faces also were similar shaped, weren’t 

Craig: they? Yeah. The articulation around the mouth especially was similar in both. And, and those masks did look pretty good, and 100 million times improvement from the cheap masks from the first film.

Yeah. And, and I imagine, you know, these movies are doing well, so I imagine that they will continue to have m- As long as they continue doing well, they’ll still be well-funded, and they’ll probably continue to improve In those areas in terms of the costumes and the prosthetics and those types of things, but yeah.

Honestly, this one has me curious now about the others. 

Todd: Yeah. Me too. 

Craig: I, I think I might watch them. 

Todd: I’m shocked. I’m utterly shocked that this movie w- awakened my curiosity about all of these other ones, because if they do this well with this one, then they’re clearly gonna be putting a little more care into the new ones, and they’re not the cheap cash grab garbage that I imagined they were going to be, especially based on the reviews from the very first film.

So yeah, I’m actually looking forward to it. So Jessica, you, you got us onto something here. Thank you so much for your request. Uh, really, really appreciate it. All of the rest of you as well, if you’re interested in becoming a patron, you can go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, and, uh, for just five bucks a month, uh, drop us a line.

Our patrons do give us requests. They vote on the requests that we’re going to do, and they have a direct line to us. We chat back there. We have a book club back there. Uh, we have the unedited phone calls that lead to our episodes that are up there every week for them to watch. Even when, uh, we’re- I’m a little slow on getting a public episode out, our patrons get immediate- almost immediately the recordings after we record them.

So if that interests you, just five bucks a month, patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. But you can find us just by searching Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast, and drop us a line anywhere we are, on our website, chainsawhorror.com, on any of our socials. Just let us know what you thought of this, and let us know which of the, what is it?

Childhood, Twisted Childhood Universe movies we should see next. I’m gonna need a little guidance on this. 

Craig: I’m looking forward to some of the ones that are coming up. I’m looking forward to 101 Rabies Bites. 

Todd: That’s one? Oh. 

Craig: That’s one of them supposedly. Um- Oh my God … The Jungle Book Bloodlines. That could be fun.

Alice in Wonderland where Alice is a street walker and- Oh, God … the Mad Hatter is a psychotic guy hunting her down. 

Todd: Alice in Wonderland is too easy. And, and you know what? Alice in Wonderland has been done to death in so- True … many other ways, right? Like, uh, there’s a porn version of at least one or two of those out there.

Oh, I’m 

Craig: sure. 

Todd: But, uh, no, um, uh, 101 Rabies Bites. Jesus. I didn’t, I haven’t seen anything about that. I thought you were making a joke. 

Craig: No, I could, I could… Um, and listen, that, you know, that’s, that’s some AI research right there, so I can’t guarantee that’s true. Oh, 

Todd: okay. 

Craig: But, uh, that’s, that’s what I read. I’m looking 

Todd: it up right now.

That’s what I read. Rabies Bites. That sounds like AI messing with you there. 

Craig: It could be. It could very well be, but I don’t know. 

Todd: Oh, my goodness. Untitled 101 Dalmatians horror film. The twisted… It was revealed, yeah, the Dalmatians have rabies. Yeah. Oh, it’s gonna be like Willard really, isn’t it? Just 101 dogs running around biting people.

I love it. Well, thank you guys so much. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.