[Editorial] Interview With Amber Doig-Thorne (Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey)

The trailer for Winne-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, the bloodthirsty slasher that hit U.K. cinema screens in March 2023, was a viral hit even before the film's release.

When A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in January 2022, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield of Jagged Edge Productions pounced on the opportunity to turn the story of the iconic 'Bear of Very Little Brain' into a gory and relentless barrage of bloodthirsty havoc. Blood and Honey is a twist on a familiar type of horror film, focusing on a bunch of good-looking young people ambushed at a creepy cabin in the woods. The twist is Frake-Waterfield's transformation of the innocent Pooh bear into a lumbering slasher killer with the size, appetite, and proportions of Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Blood and Honey was highly anticipated at Glasgow FrightFest 2023, an arm of the U.K.'s largest international thriller, fantasy, and horror movie festival. Ahead of the screening, I met one of the stars, British actress Amber Doig-Thorne to chat about women in slasher horror, her experiences making Blood and Honey, and LGBTQ+ representation in horror. Amber is enthusiastic about Blood and Honey which she describes as "taking a lot of inspiration from 80s horror. It's about Christopher robin as an adult. He grows up, goes to college and abandons Pooh and friends to their own devices in Hundred Acre Wood. It doesn't turn out well – Pooh and friends turn violent and feral - with some pretty lethal consequences". 

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We begin by talking about Amber's unorthodox route into acting. Amber is a content creator with her own YouTube channel providing a behind-the-scenes look at film sets and world premieres, along with sit-down interviews with Hollywood stars, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emily Blunt, and Jessica Chastain. As she tells me about getting her start in the acting world, I ask whether it's fun being on the other side of the interview, talking about her projects and promoting her own film?

 "Being involved in the promotional side of the film is so strange," she observes. 'I've had years of being the interviewer, and this is my first stint as the interviewee. Weirdly enough, there's an overlap between my content creation and my interest in horror. Scream is my favourite franchise, and Courtney Cox's character in the first Scream, Gale Weathers, was eye-catching. I loved her role as a TV presenter and journalist, and – hilariously – it opened my eyes and made me think that I wanted to be a journalist. I always hoped to be involved in films with Blood and Honey's level of publicity and journalistic interest. When I read the synopsis, I thought it was wild and out there. I also had a weird feeling that this film could do well. I laughed it off in the early days of filming, but when they released the trailers and Blood and Honey went viral, it felt so weird to have that instinct confirmed!"

Blood and Honey has a memorable villain. The iconic image of Pooh as a plush, cuddly teddy bear is transformed into a fleshy, bloodthirsty killer. Amber gives me some insight into the look and appearance of the film.

“They wanted the creatures to be vicious and animal-like. Pooh is a bear, and his sidekick, Piglet, has grown into a giant hog. They used realistic masks to create the look of the characters. The director talked about this at the Blood and Honey premiere in Mexico. When he first had the idea, he realised there were two ways to approach the Pooh character. He could either be small and vicious like a Chucky doll. But, if you go to see a Pooh film, you want to see a lot of Pooh. Pooh is played by Craig Dowsett, a large, six-foot actor with martial arts experience. As an actor, it helped me to be scared! He was very physically imposing and covered in blood. The make-up and costume team, including Rebecca Wheeler, were fantastic with the prosthetics, especially since there’s not much CGI in the film”.

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I ask Amber to tell me more about her character in Blood and Honey, Alice. Her character is one of the heroines, and Alice's growth and development are one of the central narrative arcs in the film. How did she respond to the character when reading the synopsis and script?

 "I was given an in-depth synopsis, and when I read it, I quickly fell in love with my character. I play a woman called Alice, a lead role in Blood and Honey. The film focuses on a group of women at university who want to get away for a weekend together. They want to get away and have fun. Alice is a lovely character who goes on an incredible journey in the film. She's an LGBT+ character. When I read the script, I was thrilled to read about a horror film character in a queer relationship. For the film's first half, Alice's priority is her girlfriend, who is still in the closet. Yet, something happens to Alice that transforms her outlook. There's a transformative moment when Alice's personality turns, and - without any spoilers - she desires revenge. She has a really satisfying revenge scene that I hope horror fans will remember. I hope Alice plays a tiny part in LGBT+ representation in horror."

Now that Amber's played a "Final Girl" character in Blood and Honey, I ask her to tell me more about her relationship with horror. Who is her favourite Final Girl in horror cinema?

"I love Laurie Strode. Halloween is one of the first horror films I saw – if I were to write my own horror film, I'd want to feature a final girl like Laurie. I feel like final girls can be written from a male perspective, emphasizing weakness and damsel-in-distress qualities. I didn't feel that with Laurie Strode, and I love how her character has grown and developed in the recent with the recent trilogy sequels. "

We turn to the tongue-in-cheek humour in Blood and Honey. What was it like actually filming these scenes with gore and slapstick and shooting something like that? It must have been fun but challenging from a practical perspective?

 "There are quite a few funny moments in the film. There are one-liners – some of which are scripted and some of which are improvised (especially towards the end). I think there's a very close relationship between being excited and being nervous. If you're in a situation where you're very nervous, you can start laughing at the intense situation and not know why. I think horror films can reflect that, and they take the audiences on a roller coaster ride. Blood and Honey has moments of light-hearted relief - it's not all death or gore."

We turn away from Blood and Honey and finish the conversation by talking about Amber's upcoming projects.

"I'm in pre-production for about seven independent features filming this year. Baby in the Basket is an upcoming psychological thriller about a group of nuns looking after a baby left on their doorstep. After the baby hasn't been there too long, I play a character who starts to believe the baby is the offspring of the devil. It's a very psychological film with lots of twists and turns. I loved the layers of the characters – it won't be what you expect when it's released. I'm also working on a film called Dying Breed which is a Viking film – very different to Blood and Honey! I've done many horrors, and it's great to be trying new kinds of films. I'm also working as a producer on this film, and we're currently looking for investment. We're working on a twenty-minute proof of concept over the summer and looking for a cast afterward. This is my first producing role – it'll be a challenge, but I'm ready for it!" 

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