BAMBI: THE RECKONING

Review by Glenn Andreiev

Cinematography by Vance Knight

Produced by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Scott Chambers

Based on the book BAMBI: A LIFE IN THE WOODS by Felix Salten

Screenplay by Rhys Warrington

Directed by Dan Allen

Cast: Roxanne McKee, Nicola Wright, Tom Mulheron, Alex Cooke.

2025, 81 minutes. Jagged Edge Productions

The word “cliché” has its origins in 19th-century France. Printing presses copying the same text over and over would make a “click” sound at each printing. To many, clichés are a comfort, a safe zone. The same styled beats in a song, or the same scenes and characters in numerous films—especially a genre film like a romantic comedy or horror film—create a soothing mood. Your brain doesn’t have to process unique ideas; it can just relax. There are no surprises. Watching BAMBI: THE RECKONING, with its industrial-strength clichés, lets your brain really relax. It just safely passes you by.

BAMBI: THE RECKONING is the fourth film in a British-based franchise called “The Twisted Childhood Universe” (TCU for short). Their formula is taking long-beloved children’s stories and turning them into blood-splattered, over-the-top horror movies. Their first film was 2023’s WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY, where writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield took A.A. Milne’s adorable animal characters like Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger and mutated them into frightening-looking homicidal monsters. The Winnie the Pooh character recently went into the public domain, so Waterfield could make his creeped-out version on a budget of $100,000. WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY was met with scathing reviews but took in a worldwide box office of nearly 8 million dollars. This prompted TCU to make two more films—WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY 2 and PETER PAN’S NEVERLAND NIGHTMARE—both box office successes. BAMBI: THE RECKONING, produced by Waterfield and directed by Dan Allen, came next. Somehow, this cookie-cutter horror film got some fairly positive reviews, but it didn’t perform the box office magic of the first films. Upcoming TCU projects include PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG, another WINNIE THE POOH sequel, as well as a horrific take on MARY POPPINS.

In the film, Bambi, after witnessing hunters kill her mother, grows into a monster deer with Giger-like alien teeth. In modern-day England, a taxi traveling through deep nocturnal woods gets into an accident. The driver is killed, but the passengers—the recently divorced Xana and her son, Benji—escape while the monster Bambi rips apart the driver and their vehicle. Xana and Benji reach the house they were traveling to—a science research lab and living quarters. The very powerful Bambi invades the house, and our protagonists have to battle Bambi in vehicles and in the woods. Think NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD minus the house.

In a recent podcast interview, one of the TCU creators boasted about their personal stamp on these films. This is an odd statement because BAMBI: THE RECKONING is truly a collection of copies of classic horror films. The opening title sequence montage shows contaminated waste spilling into the woods after a car accident. An ordinary deer passes by and laps up the spilled glowing-green ooze. This recalls the dumped toxic waste in the opening of the cult favorite THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. (Yes, I have a fondness for this one.) The overgrown, powerful, mutated Bambi crunching up the SUV with our heroes inside recalls the T-REX and the SUV in JURASSIC PARK. Bambi’s caged fawn screaming while her captors taunt her recalls the caged infant yeti in the rarely seen Japanese abominable snowman film HALF HUMAN. Then, of course, one of our female leads is cornered in a bathroom while Bambi chops through the wooden door. This recalls Jack Nicholson in some obscure horror film I’ve seen. When the TCU crew run out of ideas, they can always turn to literary works in the public domain. How about ANNA KARENINA MUST BE DESTROYED? Or TASTE THE BLOOD OF EBENEZER SCROOGE?