Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (2024)

2023's "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was bullshit; a fact tacitly acknowledged by "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2" when it downgrades its predecessor to movie-within-a-movie status and does a soft reset of the story of Christopher Robin (now played by Scott Chambers) and the anthropomorphic killer critters inspired by his earlier abandonment of them. This time Pooh (Ryan Oliva) and Piglet (Eddy MacKenzie) have company in the form of Owl (Marcus Massey), who becomes their de facto leader in their murderous quest for revenge against their former friend. No longer moving in slow motion and backed up by a sturdier script than the first movie had, Pooh and friends set out on a bloodier and better killing spree in what is essentially the first entry into Jagged Edge Productions' so-called "Poohniverse" franchise.

Pitched somewhere between "The Mean One" and "Terrifier", Rhys Frake-Waterfield's sequel surpasses its predecessor in every metric, which isn't to say it does anything special with its bloodthirsty versions of beloved A.A. Milne characters. What it does do is provide gleefully gory kill after kill, an actual plot that logically centers Christopher Robin, and much higher production values than survivors of the abortive 2023 movie might expect. Most refreshingly, the action isn't slowed down to a snail's pace like it was in the first movie; now that the cast and crew have an actual story to work with, there's little need to pad out its slim 93 minute runtime by having characters move in slow-motion or endlessly shamble around sets. There's an energy and structure to this movie that's very welcome.

But is it ultimately a good movie? Not really. Because while the splatfest kills and Scott Chambers' leading performance go a long way towards winning back some good will, the movie slackens between its killer set pieces, lacks substantial characters, and feels like it's once again jumped the shark by the time Pooh and co. are dropping one-liners in which they call their victims "bitch" like they're Freddy Krueger or something. When the "Terrifier" films exist, "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2" is intermittently entertaining (especially in a rave party sequence that sees Tigger viciously taking out a bunch of people) but redundant. Of course, even that seems miraculous after the disaster that "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was, but it doesn't quite make this new version good in its own right. Really, it's mediocre.