Growing up every kid hoped for these kind of days where the teacher maybe wasn’t
“feeling all too well, so instead of today’s lesson we’re gonna watch a movie.”
It was an unexpected treat that you and your classroom homies got once every blue moon or so. The teacher would roll out a blocky box tv, I know I’m showing my age a bit with that, or roll down the projector screen and play like your own personal movie theatre. Kids would giggle and cheer as they got to get a break from their hectic school lives and just either sleep or watch a Disney movie they’ve seen 100 times. School movie days are a reprieve for students which I would argue helps student-teacher dynamics as well as showing the students that hard work can earn you a reward. At least that is what I would usually say about most school movie days.
See most school movie days are relaxing with a family friendly movie or if the teacher was really cool, maybe even a PG-13 movie, crazy I know. But what happens when a teacher fails the easiest assignment they have? What happens when the movie in question is an absolute atrocity? A movie in which students, especially 4th grade students, should probably never watch.
Today I will be talking about a movie day that ended in absolute chaos for a Miami school.
October 2, 2023. A math class at the Academy of Innovative Education charter school in Miami Springs, Florida (go figure) had themselves a movie day. The teacher, who has remained nameless as of this moment, decided they would let the kids decide the movie they watched. As they scrolled through the options the students finally landed on what first seemed like it would be a fine choice. That is until you read the entire title of the film.
Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Before I dive into the rest of this story, I think it is only fair I give you some context as to what exactly Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is all about.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood And Honey is a low-budget slasher film directed by Rhys Waterfield. After Winnie the Pooh fell into the public domain last year, Waterfield decided he would make the most outlandish horror movie one could think of.
What if Winnie the Pooh and Piglet became grotesque, towering monsters that viciously stalked and murdered people?
The movie had a very limited release in the US and although only having a budget of $100,000 dollars, it grossed a total of $5.2 million globally making the movie a surprising success. Though that is a huge success in its own right, that doesn’t necessarily mean the movie is good. In fact, to no one’s surprise, the movie is a complete and utter dumpster fire. With a so bad it’s almost impressive 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an abysmal 2.9/10 on IMDb, this movie feels like it was made out of a dare. With horrible costumes that you can find on Amazon, questionable character decisions, horrendous writing, and arguably the dumbest backstory of all time, it would be easier to go over why this movie is so bad rather than find maybe one or two good things about the film. With all that being said if you are interested, trust me you aren’t, I’ll leave the synopsis of the film below.
The synopsis goes as follows: “After Christopher Robin abandons them for college, Pooh and Piglet embark on a bloody rampage as they search for a new source of food.” That’s it, that’s the story. If you’d like to more know about the actors, reviews, etc. you can follow the link here for the IMDb page.
Let’s get back to the story.
So the students pick the movie and the teacher proceeds to play the film. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, not 20 minutes into the film students start to complain. The teacher, seemingly ignoring the pleas of the students, lets the movie continue for another 10 or so minutes. Finally after about 30 minutes into the film with students constantly telling the teacher they don’t want to watch the film anymore, the teacher finally turns off the film and movie day is over. The school day goes on and after school, the students’ parents came to pick up their kids only to discover what went on in that fateful math class. Parents were obviously angry that their children were shown a horror film that is clearly not appropriate for children and addressed it with the head of the school Ms. Vera Hirsh. In a statement made to CBS News: “The Academy for Innovative Education has become aware that a segment of a horror movie was shown to fourth graders, Monday, October 2, 2023, that was not suitable for the age group. Our administration promptly addressed this issue directly with the teacher and has taken appropriate action to ensure the safety and well-being of students.”
As of now the teacher in question has not been fired and there is no news of any disciplinary actions toward the teacher. Parents feel like the school abandoned them and are frustrated, which is fair. A parent has every right to be upset when they feel the school they take their children to learn and most importantly feel safe at. With all that said, I do feel it isn’t that black and white. Did the teacher play the horror movie? Yes. But was it not the students who voted on the movie? According to all accounts, yes. Should the teacher have probably stepped in and vetoed the movie? Probably. Are fourth graders capable of understanding a movie with the word “Blood” in it? Probably, I mean kids are crazy smart, especially in this day and age. Why was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey even an option to begin with? One hypothesis is because the film is still currently not rated, that could have made it available and appeared as one of the options. There are a lot of questions to this bizarre story but one thing is for certain:
Nothing good can be done with watching Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. By the way, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is already in development.
Oh bother.
