WFG RATING: F

A Rees Dragon Productions film. Written, produced, and directed by Craig Rees. Cinematography by Toson Chan. Edited by Zak Nathan.

Stars Abigail Huxley, Jimmy Roberts, Craig Rees, Susan Franks, Flex Singh, Julian Amos, Olga Solo, Jack Barry, and Grace Darling Smith. 

The fairy tale takes a dark turn in this twisted horror film that gives off The Strangers vibes.

Every year, a group of friends gather together to reunite and catch up. Kelly, Geroge, Simon, Jamie, and Jas are supposed to go to a cabin in the woods. However, when the group realizes they have accidentally gone to the wrong house, they decide to make the most of it and break in. Once they arrive, Kelly slowly begins to become plagued with nightmares and to make matters worse, when they discover three bowls of porridge, one of the bowls has been poisoned.

The group soon learns that they are not alone. In the area are four killers who are decked out wearing masks resembling Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As each member of the group begins to get picked off, the survivors must find a way to escape before they too become part of the deadly tale. 

With a lot of “public domain” horrors cashing in over the past few years, there have been successes with the Poohniverse movies and underrated gems such as Mary Had a Little Lamb, Mouse of Horrors, and even Fairest of Them All. However, with the good ones, there always tends to be a few that don’t cater to everyone and turn out bad. The Mouse Trap would be an example, but this one really takes the cake. They get an A for effort, but this is a seriously flawed film. 

Despite a few good moments, one of the major issues with the film is that the first half of the film seems quite boring. There’s some exposition but it seems nothing more than our group of would-be victims breaking into a house and just doing virtually nothing for a good portion of the first half. It just seems like nothing is really happening and it just feels like by the time something does finally happen, it feels a bit too late.

The other problem is that we don’t know the modus operandi of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As if that’s not bad enough, you may have to switch on your subtitles upon watching the film because half the time, I couldn’t understand what Goldilocks was saying. She sounded too muffled under the mask and was talking at a near John Moschitta-rate. Compared to the Bears, Goldilocks was way over the top. The few good moments comes in the final ten minutes of the film, but by then, it just felt it had gone to waste. 

I wanted to like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Blood and Porridge. However, I was heavily disappointed with the boring first half of the film, which takes away the chaos as by the time it finally comes, it just felt off. A one-watch then that’s it. 

The film is streaming on Tubi.