Crew
Director – Dan Allen, Screenplay – Rhys Warrington, Based on the Book Bambi, A Life in the Woods (1923) by Felix Salten, Producers – Scott Chambers & Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Photography – Vince Knight, Music – Greg Birkumshaw, Visual Effects/Creature Design – Ryan Bellgardt & Stephanie Bellgardt, Visual Effects – Boiling Point Media, Lunapix Creative Studios LLP & Solo VFX (Supervisor – Soheil Ashghari), Special Effects – FilmsFX Ltd (Supervisor – Keith Harding), Bambi Animated and Modelled by Stephanie Bellgardt, Makeup Effects – Tara Rodwell, Production Design – Bridget Milesi. Production Company – Jagged Edge Productions.
Cast
Roxana McKee (Xana), Tom Mulheron (Benji), Nicola Wright (Mary), Alex Cooke (Simon), Samira Mighty (Harriet), Russell Geoffrey Banks (Andrew), Joseph Greenwood (Harrison), Adrian Relph (Michael the Hunter), Ewan Borthwick (Ewan the Hunter), Big Tobs (Tyler the Hunter), Catherine Adams (Jo the Hunter), Luke Cavendish (Joshua)
Plot
Xana and her son Benji travel to join her husband Simon’s family for a get-together at a remote location in the woods. After arriving, the house is abruptly attacked by a deer that has transformed into something mutated and ferocious after ingesting nuclear waste that has been dumped in the forest. It has grown up with a hatred of all humans after seeing the killing of its mother by hunters. The group flee as the mutated deer pursues them with murderous intent.
Scott Chambers is a prolific British producer of low-budget horror films. He had some success a couple of years earlier Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2022), a horror version that trashed the children’s character, which was made after the Winnie-the-Pooh stories came into public domain. This has inspired Chambers and distributor ITN to embark on a whole series of other savage and nasty deconstructions of childhood favourites, including Mary Had a Little Lamb (2023), Three Blind Mice (2023), Cinderella’s Curse (2024), Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death & Porridge (2024), Hook (2025), Mouse of Horrors (2025), Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025), Piglet (2025), Popeye’s Revenge (2025), Rumpelstiltskin (2025) and Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026).
Bambi was the creation of Austrian Jewish author Feliz Salten (1869-1945) who the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods (1923). The story gained its fame when it was adapted by Disney as the animated Bambi (1942), one of their greatest early animated films. Disney later made a sequel with Bambi 2 (2006). Surprisingly, it is one of the few films that Disney have never remade in live-action.
Most of the horror versions of children’s stories that Chambers and ITN have turned out have not been that good but they are starting to improve. I quite liked Chambers’ own directorial outing Peter Pan’s Neverland and similarly Bambi: The Reckoning is better than expected. Most of Chambers/Jeffrey’s films are B movies. However, by this point, he and his people have either gained sufficient polish at what they are doing or better budgets and Bambi: The Reckoning often looks like a quite a bit more than a B movie.
This is particularly evident when it comes to the effects. When it comes to the scene with Bambi running in slow motion in pursuit of Samira Mighty and then goring her with its antlers, leaving her severed torso on the lawn, you are going “wow – this is doing things well.” The quality of effects holds up well throughout with Bambi rendered as an incredibly vicious creation, not to mention an army of killer rabbits thrown into the mix as well. The surprise here is that the visual effects are conducted by Ryan Bellgardt, a low-budget US director who has made the likes of Army of Frankensteins (2014), Gremlin (2017) and The Jurassic Games (2018), among others.
There is not too much more to Bambi: The Reckoning beyond the cast being pursued and killed by the mutant deer. It is effectively Bambi by way of Prophecy (1979). Dan Allen creates reasonable tension with the abrupt scenes early in the show as Bambi invades the house and especially in those with it engaged in a high-speed chase with the RV through the woods. Everything is cleverly swung around to a replay of the tragic climax of Bambi, which surprises in that the film still manages to make this affecting despite having portrayed Bambi as a monster throughout.
Dan Allen had previously worked as an editor on various films for Scott Chambers. Allen has directed several other Chambers films with Unhinged (2017), Mummy Reborn (2019) and It Came from Below (2021).
Trailer here