“The first movie I ever saw”: the Disney film Stephen King considers to be a horror
Even though his entire career was built on the back of horror, Stephen King has an interesting interpretation of what movies fit the bill, with Disney’s back catalogue of animated favourites hardly designed to strike fear into the hearts of the masses.
Of course, when one of the bestselling and most heavily-adapted authors of all time says any project counts as horror, then it’s hard to disagree with him when his reputation, fame, and vast fortune were derived entirely from his speciality of chilling readers to the bone with his bibliography.
There’s a lot to be said for people sticking to what they’re good at, and while King has dabbled in more dramatically inclined or emotionally resonant stories to freshen things up on occasion, horror has been and always will be his defining legacy as a writer.
Still, it’s clear that the very first feature film the young Maine native ever saw made a monumental impact on his fragile young mind. For the majority of its running time, the movie in question is a whimsical and heart-warming adventure that’s fun for all the family, apart from one specific scene that’s ended up traumatising multiple generations.
“The first movie I ever saw was a horror movie,” King said to Rolling Stone before taking a hard left turn. “It was Bambi.” The death of the title character’s mother and the rampaging forest fire remain two of the most indelible moments in the history of animation more than 80 years on from its initial theatrical release, and the writer was just one of countless viewers to be left borderline traumatised.
“When that little deer gets caught in a forest fire, I was terrified, but I was also exhilarated,” he continued. “I can’t explain it.” It doesn’t require much explanation, in fairness, when King is hardly alone in being left shaken up by a harrowing and heart-pounding scene that stands in direct opposition to the rest of Bambi‘s story.
With that in mind, it’s curious to imagine what King thinks about Bambi being repurposed as a genuine horror flick to carry on the nauseating trend of fairy tales and/or stories best known for their animated Disney adaptations being brought back to the screen as blood-soaked and gratuitously violent terrors. These are made on a shoestring budget designed entirely for the shock value of piggybacking on a beloved brand while doing the exact opposite with the material.
What if, instead of embarking on a coming-of-age journey after the death of his mother, the protagonist was a vicious and mutated deer with a thirst for blood that embarks on a murderous rampage to avenge her death? Sadly, that really is the basis for 2024’s Bambi: The Reckoning, although that one might not even make it onto King’s radar.
