Robert Jackman

The rise of the modern British B-movie

'Beg, borrow and steal' is the mantra for a new generation of directors pumping out hugely successful low-budget films

More than 15 million people have viewed the trailer for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

If there’s a phrase that captures the frantic energy of the modern British B-movie, it’s the concept of the ‘heart attack shoot’. And Rhys Frake-Waterfield knows more about it than most.

‘It’s not unusual to spend more than 12 hours on set,’ says the happy-go-lucky thirtysomething director during a short break from promoting his new low-budget slasher. The breakneck pace means that the shooting of an entire feature can be wrapped up in weeks, thus ensuring the project is as cheap as possible.

Cutting corners is a necessity. ‘On Winnie the Pooh, we tried to save time by not reshooting any scenes,’ he says. ‘Unless the actors made a really glaring mistake, we would just stick with the first take.’ True to the old B-movie ethos of the 1960s, the focus is on bringing the product to market at ungodly speed.

Frake-Waterfield proudly tells me that initial filming cost just £23,000 and took only eight days

If you’ve been on YouTube recently, you may have seen a trailer for Frake-Waterfield’s Winnie the Pooh – or Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey to give it its full name. More than 15 million people have viewed the viral trailer, in which an adult Christopher Robin returns to Hundred Acre Wood with his university girlfriend, only to find that his childhood companions have morphed into bloodthirsty assailants dressed in Slipknot-like boiler suits.

Like the B-movies of yesteryear, Blood and Honey is deliberately kitsch. But Frake-Waterfield insists the film isn’t meant to be a joke. Which is just as well, given that it may be on the verge of becoming one of the most successful underdog films in history – at least in terms of profitability.

‘Last time I looked, box-office sales were about £5 million – although that’s without any of the US cinemas,’ he says. Not bad, then, for a film that cost ‘much less’ than £100,000 to make (like most B-movie directors, Frake-Waterfield doesn’t disclose his entire budget, though he proudly tells me that initial filming cost just £23,000 and took only eight days).

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