Bambi may have been a sweet little deer, but he had a pretty traumatic childhood, which is what director Scott Jeffrey plans to tap into in Bambi: The Reckoning, a new horror film that will adapt the beloved children’s story.
If the 1942 Disney movie is somehow not burned into your brain, Bambi’s mother is shot and killed by a hunter when he is a young stag — the main teachable moment in the coming of age story. In The Reckoning, Jeffrey plans to use his mother’s death to drive a story of vengeance.
“The film will be an incredibly dark retelling of the 1928 story we all know and love,” Jeffrey told Dread Central. “Finding inspiration from the design used in Netflix’s The Ritual, Bambi will be a vicious killing machine that lurks in the wilderness. Prepare for Bambi on rabies!”
Bambi: The Reckoning just entered production because the character of Bambi just entered the public domain this year, 99 years after it was first published as a novel by Austro-Hungarian author Felix Salten in 1923 (an English translation followed in 1928). The same goes for the Winnie the Pooh horror adaptation Blood and Honey; the original book by A.A. Milne entered the public domain this year as well. What’s more, Blood and Honey director Rhys Frake-Waterfield will produce Bambi: The Reckoning, so if you like one film, you’ll probably like the other.
