Did "SNL" Predict a Violent, Horror-Tinged Take on "Bambi"?

The public domain can be a strange place. Sometimes it paves the way for revisionist takes on classic works of literature; sometimes you get some zombies mixed in with your Jane Austen. One of the weirder takes on transforming something in the public domain surfaced earlier in 2023 with the release of the horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

The film did not exactly open to great reviews. Critic Nick Allen explained the film’s appeal in his (one point five star) review, writing, “Some will want to see what a blood-splattering Winnie-the-Pooh movie looks like, serviceable filmmaking be damned, and I get it.” (It also led to people threatening director Rhys Frake-Waterfield.) And now it seems as though the same filmmakers are looking to put a similar spin on another beloved work of children’s literature.

Have you ever wondered what Bambi would look like with a body count? Evidently, some of the same people behind Blood and Honey have. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Alex Ritman reports that a slasher Bambi horror movie is in the works, with international distribution rights selling at this year’s Cannes film festival.

Ritman describes the plot of the film as “[involving] a mutated killer deer in the vein of Cujo.” The film is scheduled to be filmed this summer, according to THR. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey co-producer Scott Jeffrey will direct this one, while the aforementioned Frake-Waterfield will co-produce.

That said, Jeffrey and Frake-Waterfield are not the only people who have wondered about what a violent take on Bambi would be like. In 2015, Saturday Night Live parodied both Disney’s penchant for live-action remakes and the excesses of the Fast & Furious franchise with a faux trailer that featured Dwayne Johnson sporting deer ears and a very large gun, playing a deer out for revenge on the hunters who killed his mother.

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Most of the humor of this sketch comes from the inherent weirdness of the premise. A murdery take on Bambi? viewers might ask. That could never happen! And yet here we are. For those who would prefer their Bambi without chaos everywhere, it’s worth mentioning that late 2022 saw the release of two new translations of the original novel with all of the deer and none of the jump scares.