LOS ANGELES — A newly announced slasher film Bambi: The Reckoning has officially been deemed less upsetting to children than the classic Disney animated film on which it’s based, misty-eyed youngsters remembering Bambi’s mom’s fate confirmed.
“A deer serial killer is far less harrowing to my little psyche than confronting the ever-dwindling mortality of my mother,” mused local second-grader Ginny Carrero, after being shown the Reckoning’s teaser trailer. “Why our parents continually cause generational trauma by showing that scary cartoon is beyond me. Bring on the Reckoning, it will be a walk in the park compared to the wildfire, shotgun blasts, and skunk foreplay in the old one.”
“Now if we could just get a gritty new version of that horse scene in ‘The Neverending Story’ I could be the first of my siblings to grow up well-adjusted!” he added.
Leading child psychologists agree that the violence in the new slasher fares better on the constitutions of youngsters.
“Judging by the trailer, The Reckoning appears to be a revenge story, based on Bambi’s retaliation against the hunters who ripped his mother away from him in the animated film. This actually reinforces to impressionable children the importance of family, whereas the first one showed the importance of ‘frolicing in the flowers’ which we scientists believe to be perfunctory at most,” said Dr. Stephanie Susskind, while handing a nearby kindergartener a copy of Poltergeist, to teach the importance of shelter. “Just because a film is lushly hand-animated doesn’t mean it is for a child’s eyes, and our studies show that the human cerebrum is ready to confront the tormenting, searing emotional baggage that comes with Bambi once they’ve served a few military tours of duty.”
Though many of the original animators behind the 1942 Disney film have passed on, those who remain attest that the Reckoning was all part of the plan.
“Oh, trust me, we knew what we were doing. That whole doggone picture was a long-con on the industry to get a horror movie made out of it as soon as we put pencil to paper. You don’t write a sweet, lilting song like ‘Little April Shower’ without fully expecting it to be repurposed a hundred years later over shots of blood and gore. Sheesh, I’m getting chills just thinking about it,” wheezed 95-year-old Ollie Trimball, who began as a layout artist for Disney when he was just 13. “Honestly, we all thought Walt was doing a bit when he went to release it. That thing belongs in the vault with the other ‘unmentionables’ he ended up hiding away. I say ‘phooey!’ What good does cryogenically freezing your head do if you haven’t got a brain inside it?”
At press time, the team behind Bambi: The Reckoning has begun preparation for sweeping every category in the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
