This cinematic trend needs to stop... But it won’t.
ADVERTISEMENTThere’s been a worrying trend of late that involves turning beloved children’s classics into horror movies, and it shows no sign of stopping.
The Typhoid Mary here is Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a seemingly promising bit of cheap subversive fun that ended up as a painfully generic wasted opportunity. While it got terrible reviews - and bagged a Razzie Award for the Worst Picture of 2023 - it also made money. This led to a sequel, the adventurously titled Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, and the creation of the “Pooniverse” (stop giggling at the back) - a “twisted childhood universe” of B-movie horror movies based on popular kids films.
And now comes the latest entry in the new franchise.
The same producers behind the viral ursine dud have now produced Bambi: The Reckoning and released a teaser trailer...
In it, two hunters can be seen using a dead bird as target practice.
“You ever shot a deer?” one of them asks.
“No. Have you?” the second hunter replies.
“Yeah, once,” answers the first.
The implication being, if you hadn’t guessed already, that he was the one who killed Bambi’s mother.
We then see an angry deer (presumably grown-up Bambi) flipping a car over and not looking best pleased. Hungry for revenge, we’d warrant.
See for yourself:
The film’s official synopsis reads: “We follow Xana (Roxanne McKee) and her son Benji (Tom Mulheron) who find themselves in a car wreck and soon hunted down by the vicious killing machine, Bambi.”
Oh deer.
Granted, Disney’s Bambi was one of the darker films in their catalogue, with an entire generation scarred by our favourite fawn’s mother being shot in the woods. It does lend itself rather well to a horror treatment. And sure, this could be trashy, camp fun, and by the looks of the teaser it already seems significantly better than the entirety of Blood and Honey. Judgement shall be reserved until we’ve seen it...
That said, we can’t help but groan. The whole Pooniverse schtick continues to reek of crash grab antics from executives who only see the (empty) shock value in creating a disconnect between children’s literature and horror movies. Which is inherently ridiculous, as most children’s stories, from Grimm to Disney, have an inherent darkness to them already. But the bean counters at Umbrella Entertainment and Jagged Edge Productions don’t care.
In addition to Blood and Honey 2 and the upcoming third chapter, they are also developing Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and Pinocchio Unstrung – which is, admittedly, an excellent title. They then will make Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble where all of these films will cross over, with the likes of Pooh, Bambi, Tinker Bell, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty and The Mad Hatter teaming up.
Think of it as Avengers for creatively-barren, cash starved execs who could have something promising in principle, but in practice will churn out these films as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to rake in as much coinage as they can.
Such is the way, but this particular cinematic trend is so blatant, it deserves to be called out. And to end – as quickly as Mummy Bambi’s oxygen habit.
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