Bambi Is Now a Cold-Blooded 'Killing Machine'

As if the original 1942 Disney film wasn't upsetting enough, it turns out that our favorite baby fawn is now being turned into a "vicious killing machine" in a new horror movie dubbed Bambi: The Reckoning.

According to Dread Central, director Scott Jeffrey is turning Felix Salten's novel about the eponymous woodland creature into "an incredibly dark retelling of the 1928 story we all know and love."

"Bambi will be a vicious killing machine that lurks in the wilderness," as Jeffrey went on to tell the outlet, explaining that Bambi: The Reckoning will also take cues from Netflix's The Ritual, which is about four hikers who come face-to-face with a horrifying forest creature. So as he added, audiences better "prepare for Bambi on rabies!"

But how did this bloody perversion of an adorable fawn and his little animal friends even come to be? Well, it seems as if Jeffrey has been able to take advantage of US copyright law, which allows books to become public domain 70 years after an author's passing. So given that Salten passed away in 1945, Jeffrey and his cohorts over at ITN Studios and Jagged Edge Productions are now well within their rights to make the film, as Disney no longer owns the exclusive rights to the story.

Granted, if anyone was to remake Bambi as a cold-blooded killer, it'd probably be Jeffrey, seeing as how he's already the man behind similarly terrifying films such as The Curse of Humpty Dumpty and The Bad Nun. Not only that, but he will also apparently be joined by producer Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who is about to debut his own childhood-ruining slash film dubbed Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Talk about a dream nightmare team.

Disney has yet to comment on Bambi: The Reckoning. Until the film is released next February though, you can check out Dread Central's full report on the horror flick here.

Photo via Getty / LMPC