Bambi named one of top 25 horror films

[PixarFan2006]

I don't know why they put Bambi on that list. Obivously they could not think of any other horror movies to add to the list.

[toonaspie]

Permit me to be weird...but I think the idea of Bambi being a horror film is actually...cool.

I've always been into the animated features that are dark in a unique way (much like The Last Unicorn, Scruffy, and The Fox and the Hound). I think it makes me appreciate Bambi even more.

[Siren]

Wow how time has changed the perception of horror. Bambi is most definitely a horror film. The idea of a an unknown force destroying loved ones and then your home is a truly terrifying thing to imagine. The
movie has classic elements of horror films such as tense music just before something terrible happens, a villian who comits senseless attrocities, a hell of a lot of suspense. And to top it all off, Bambi, his mother and the other forest animals are good people, something most victims of "horror" movies these days are not.

It's not gore porn, but it is a work of horror. We've just become so immune to this type of horror that we don't precieve it as such.

Agreed. Its NOT just about his mother's death. If that was the case, Lion King would have been on the list too, in that movie we actually saw a dead body for a good few minutes. Bambis however uses the "Jaws element". In the movie Jaws, you anticipate the shark, you fear the shark, but you barely see the shark. But the scenes WITHOUT the shark tend to be scarier than the scenes with the shark. Suspense. Pure and simple. Bambi has this same element. The characters don't need to see the humans to fear them. The look in his mother's eyes when she hears/smells them. When Bambi's father finds him, there is so consoling, its just "You're mother can't be with you any longer....Come", and they walk away. How the animals, mainly the Great Prince speak of "man", the ominous nature. You know he's dealt with them before. You can imagine the horrors the Great Prince has seen humans did to the forest animals. The amount of death due to humans he has seen. And then the dramatic battle between Ronno and Bambi. The way they throw eachother around. Its no lightweight battle. Ronno is willing to kill Bambi. Deers KILLING eachother, its very Watership Down. Then of course those dogs. The way they look and act. They weren't the fluffy Lady and the Tramp kinds of dogs. And again, we see the main character of the movie, shot! We see him fall. No blood, but blood isn't necessary. We know Bambi could die.

Can I see it as a horror movie? Sure. In the Top 25? Don't know about that.

Also remember other Disney movies caused controversy, were considered too violent and scary. I know Lady and the Tramp's rat scene with the baby made a lot of people upset to have an ANIMATED baby in that kind of danger. We all know Walt Disney was a genius and innovator, but he was so before his time. It was important for him for his 2-D animated characters that were as realistic as possible. The attention to detail. Disney Studios was the first animation studio to send people out into the woods to study the animals first hand. Years later, animators go to Africa to study animals for Lion King. People back when Bambi came out are different then they are now. How about we just toss out Dracula from being a top horror movie because it looks to unrealistic and is kinda silly? Think about when Jaws came out, people FAINTED and VOMITED in the theater watching that movie in the 70s. Is Saw the new Bambi? Course not, but horror movie does not mean it MUST have gore, scary looking monsters, and a dumb blonde running up the stairs to a dead end. Horror is about suspense, about monsters. And the monster in Bambi was man. Its a bit of a political movie when it comes to that. About how careless and heartless we are. To kill a mother deer with a baby and to leave a campfire burning. It happens to this day, illegal or not.