Bambi goes Cujo….

With a plot you could write on a paper handkerchief – a small one of that – the Twisted Children Universe, not content with ruining our memories of Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan, now extends to the loveable deer named Bambi, now redesigned as murderous bogeyman intent on blood and mayhem.

Shockingly, the film is not that bad! Yes, I have wrote praise to a title that sounds awful. A stylish animated prologue raises eyebrows that displays that some thought has gone into the making of this children’s nightmare, an obvious homage to Disney that twists the Bambi tale into a cleverly dark talk of sorrow and eventually revenge.

The sequence really is the only bit of originality as we soon settle into the basic set-up, a mother (Roxanne McKee) and her young son (Tom Mulheron) are off to visit their grandmother the middle of the night when they are attacked by a CGI Bambi who has the taste for blood.

In true B-Movie fashion, the animal creation is actually pretty good, not ground breaking but we’ve seen worse and when the deer is on-screen, Bambi does carry a decent amount of threat with the shallow plotting offering up enough human meat on screen to delight those looking for on-screen cheap thrills.

A nearby family and a game of hunters are all folly to Bambi’s rage but it’s to the credit of director Dan Allen, he serves up some pretty decent slash sequences that you can only nod with approval, including a slow motion kill that is straight out of GHOSTFACE’S notepad and when Thumper – yes that loveable bunny -decides to join in the fun, you can’t help but smile at the commitment to all those involved to make this bizarre tale work.

I admit that while the quality level of this film franchise is way below expectations, somehow THE RECKONING surprises by being not as ghastly as it should be. This new genre of Public Domain Horror is finding its feet, just who would have thought that Bambi would be leading the way?

2.5 Hatchets out of 5