A small fawn named Bambi begins life under the careful watch of his mother, who leads him to the spring grass and teaches him to heed danger. One day in the meadow she senses a human presence, shouts for him to run, and a single gunshot rings out. Bambi returns to the thicket and finds his mother is gone; later the Great Prince of the forest tells him she will not be coming back. Bambi grows into a young stag and meets a doe called Faline; they pair and Faline bears a single fawn. The family shows the new fawn the woods and warns it about men and machines. Months pass and a truck contracted by a pharmaceutical company called Wibexr Pharmaceuticals barrels down a nearby road. The vehicle veers onto the shoulder and slams into Faline, crushing her and spilling drums of toxic waste into a culvert that drains toward the stream where Bambi and his family drink. In the chaos their young disappears, panicked by the noise and bright lights. Grief-stricken, Bambi wanders to the water and laps at the poisoned current. The contaminated river mutates him: his body becomes gaunt and animalistic, his eyes darken, and he turns into a hungry, violent creature driven to seek vengeance for what he has lost.

Years later, a suburban Thanksgiving begins to fold toward evening. Xana loads her young son Benji into a taxi to travel to a house where her husband Simon's relatives have gathered: Simon's elderly mother Mary, who suffers from dementia; Simon's brothers Andrew and Joshua; Andrew's wife Harriet; and Andrew's teenage son Harrison. Simon promises Xana he will arrive before dinner. During the drive a massive animal barrels into traffic. The taxi driver slams the brakes and shouts; the animal smashes through the windshield and pins the driver beneath its hooves and jaws. The beast kills the driver outright and then grabs at the cab, but Xana wrestles Benji free and they stagger on foot along the driveway to Mary's house, shaken but alive.

Outside the house three hunters--Michael, Tyler, and Eddie--prepare weapons in a barn on the outskirts of town. They work under contract from Wibexr, assembling traps and reinforcing shotguns, and they discuss their plan to track and kill the mutated stag. Back at the house, Joshua steps outside into the yard against warnings. Tyler, inexperienced and jumpy, mistakes Joshua for the creature and fires his rifle. A stray round hits Joshua in the chest; he collapses and dies instantly. The party inside reels from the accidental shooting as Mary wanders the rooms behaving oddly. She hums and draws crude images of a deer on scraps of paper and on the walls, signing the name "Bambi" as if she remembers something the others do not.

Tension swells and then terror breaks loose when the creature appears at the porch and rams through the house. Bambi smashes windows and slams against doors; under the stampede Harriet rushes to the corridor and is seized by the beast. He dismantles the interior and kills her in a brutal attack. Screams follow as the family flees toward a caravan parked nearby, packing in panic for a drive away from the property. A fallen log blocks the lane. Andrew jumps out and heaves at the timber to clear a path. Benji climbs into the cab with Xana and Mary; when Benji glances back he spots the hulking deer approaching the caravan's exit. In a split second, panic drives Benji to gun the engine. The caravan lurches forward and Andrew, still trying to roll the log, slips and becomes pinned beneath the trailer's hitch. He is dragged along the road as the vehicle gains speed and leaves the property; the jolt tears open his legs and he bleeds profusely. Benji slams on the brakes and they stop, but Andrew's injuries are catastrophic and he dies of blood loss before they can free him.

Harrison runs into the surrounding forest while the family scatters. The teenager stumbles through dense underbrush, calling for help and trying to find a path back. A group of mutated rabbits--small animals changed by the same poison, their mouths split with rows of needle teeth--rush him in a feeding frenzy. They swarm him, clawing and tearing, and they maul Harrison to death in a tangle of fur and limbs. His screams echo and then cut off.

Xana, Benji, and Mary make it deeper into the woods, shaken and limping. They encounter Michael, the lead hunter, who has been tracking signs of the stag. Michael ushers them toward a hidden den beneath a grove and leads them into a subterranean clearing where he and his companions have established a makeshift base. There, waiting in the dim, they find Simon and his coworker Jo. Simon presents himself as the calm, businesslike head of logistics at Wibexr; as the four adults talk, Simon's expression shifts from concern to something colder. He admits, flatly, that he was present the night Faline died--that he had ordered the truck to use the access road, that the company's drums were not securely latched, and that he dumped contaminated waste into the drainage ditch rather than reporting the spill. He says he intended to trap and kill the mutated deer, prioritizing containment over human life, and he reveals he does not care how many animals--or people--suffer in the process.

While that conversation continues, Benji slips away and discovers a cluttered garage the hunters have been using as a holding pen. Inside two of the men--Tyler and Eddie--have a young fawn confused and terrified in a wire crate. The hunters have been sedating the animal and prodding it for amusement. Benji opens the cage and helps the fawn escape into the wood, whispering to coax it to run. Outside the structure Tyler goes to the edge of the woods to relieve himself, standing with his back to the trees. Without warning, Bambi appears, silent as a shadow. The creature lunges, seizes Tyler's head and neck, and tears his skull from his body in a single savage motion. Blood sprays and Tyler slumps. Eddie runs to see what happened; Bambi spins and snaps at Eddie's legs, ripping both off in a grotesque motion and then buries his jaws into Eddie's neck and head, leaving nothing whole. Their bodies collapse in a ruin of gore.

Benji flees with the freed fawn into the trees. Xana and Simon sprint after him, while Mary wanders away, drawn by a sound she cannot name. Mary comes upon Bambi alone in a clearing. The creature crouches low, muscles coiled, and charges. He pins her against a mossy log and snaps at her throat. Jo hears Mary's cry and runs toward the struggle. Realizing her gun and the others' weapons will only escalate the danger, Jo decides to end the threat with a sacrificial act: she fires her pistol at a can of gasoline stacked by the camp stove. The bullet punctures the can and sparks follow; Jo dives toward the leaking canister and squeezes the trigger on another flame source she has lit. An explosion engulfs the clearing. Flames hammer the air and Jo is consumed in the blast; her body is hurled and torn by the blast, and the fire slaps at surrounding trees. Bambi stumbles, hair singed, and roars in fury, but he survives the inferno. He disappears into the scorched understory, limping but alive.

Benji finds his mother and Simon and they regroup near a ridge. Michael rejoins them minutes later, waving a rifle and demanding to see the fawn Benji has freed. He presses barrel into Simon's side and commands that the deer be handed over to Wibexr men. Tense words turn to panicked movement as Bambi breaches the tree line and drags Michael backward into the forest's dark tangle with a violent, jerking pull. The stag tosses the hunter against roots and then turns away, approaching the boy. At that moment Simon betrays both Xana and Benji: seeing the situation spin out, he flees along the road toward his idling car, leaving them exposed. He digs the keys from his pocket and slams into the cabin, but a mutated rabbit--one of the same grotesque lagomorphs that ate Harrison--bounds up under the dashboard and lunges. The animal gnaws at Simon's hands and face; in a flurry of teeth and panicked movement, it drags him from the vehicle and rips him apart inside his car until he is dead, his body mangled across the steering wheel.

Xana grabs Benji and they crouch with the small fawn they freed. They watch as Bambi steps from the trees into the clearing, blood matted on his flanks and flank slick from the earlier explosion. He sniffs the freed fawn, pawing the ground, and then lowers his head to nuzzle it. The fawn freezes at the scent of its parent, and Bambi lifts it gently with his teeth and presses it to his side. For a moment, the primacy of vengeance and pain gives way to a savage tenderness as Bambi holds his offspring close.

Moments after this fragile reunion, a dusted and frantic Michael staggers out from the underbrush. He carries a pistol and blood stains his shirtsleeves from the earlier grapple, but his face is fixed in a furious, determined grimace. He raises the gun with shaking hands and fires into Bambi's chest. The deer's body shudders and his muscles go slack. He stumbles, staggers twice, and collapses onto the leaf-littered ground. The gunshot carves a red wound through fur and muscle, and the blood seeps into the soil. Michael laughs harshly, thinking nothing can move now, and he takes two steps forward. Mary, who had been standing a short distance away and who moments earlier seemed lost to dementia, raises a hunting rifle she had clutched since the arrival of the hunters. Her eyes sharpen; she levels the weapon and fires. The bullet slams into Michael's torso. He reels, gurgles, and topples face-first into the mud. Mary walks over without haste. She stands above Michael's body, looks down at his broken form, and then turns back to Bambi.

Bambi lies on his side, his breath shallow and rasping. His nostrils flare; his eyelids flicker. Xana kneels at his head and cradles his cheek against her palms. Benji reaches a small, trembling hand toward the creature's face; the fawn Bambi carries curls its nose against its parent and bleats softly. Bambi looks at his child and then lifts his head one last time. He exhales slowly, and the life drains from his eyes. Blood spreads under him, a dark stain soaking the leaf litter. He goes still.

Xana presses her forehead to his flank and begins to weep. Benji collapses and sobs against the fallen stag. Mary stands a few paces away, rifle lowered, watching the tableau with a steadier demeanor than she displayed before. The small fawn nuzzles Bambi's lifeless muzzle and then hops away from the carcass into the undergrowth. It pauses on a root, looks back once, and bounds toward a line of trees where a family of deer slips into shadow. The camera of the scene closes in on Bambi's inert form, the wound in his chest slick with coagulating blood.

After a long moment, Xana helps Benji to his feet. They leave the clearing, carrying with them the memory of the night's violence, the caged fawn left alive in their care, and the bodies of hunters and family scattered across the roads and woods. In the final frame, Bambi's body rests under a rain of ash and burned leaves, while the small fawn vanishes between trunks and the last light sinks beyond the horizon. The film ends with the image of the fallen stag bleeding out where he died, surrounded by the people and the creature he both loved and destroyed.

The ending of Bambi: The Reckoning (2025) shows Bambi fatally wounded after a violent confrontation with the humans. Michael shoots Bambi, but Mary, regaining clarity from her dementia, kills Michael in retaliation. Bambi dies bleeding beside his offspring, while Xana and Benji watch helplessly, marking the tragic close of Bambi's vengeful journey.

In the final sequence of Bambi: The Reckoning, the story unfolds with intense and brutal events:

The group--Xana, Benji, and Mary--find Michael, who leads them to a den where they meet Simon and Jo. Simon reveals he is responsible for killing Faline and dumping toxic waste into the river, which triggered the chain of horrors. Meanwhile, Benji discovers a garage where two men, Tyler and Eddie, have caged a young fawn. Simon reveals his plan to trap and kill Bambi, showing no concern for the collateral damage.

Tyler is the first to fall victim to Bambi's wrath; while urinating, Bambi decapitates him. Eddie investigates and is similarly killed when Bambi rips off his legs and head. Benji frees the young fawn and flees. Xana and Simon pursue Benji, while Mary encounters Bambi, who attempts to kill her. Jo sacrifices herself by shooting a gas canister, causing an explosion intended to kill Bambi, but he survives.

Benji reunites with Xana and Simon, but Michael arrives, threatening them at gunpoint and demanding the fawn. Bambi drags Michael into the forest and approaches Benji. Simon, abandoning Xana and Benji, tries to escape but is killed by mutated rabbits inside his car.

Xana and Benji realize the freed fawn is Bambi's offspring and return it to him, briefly calming Bambi's rage. However, the peace is shattered when a bloodied Michael shoots Bambi fatally. Before Michael can finish the job, Mary, who has regained mental clarity, shoots and kills Michael in a single vengeful shot.

The film closes with Bambi bleeding out on the ground, dying in front of Xana, Benji, and his offspring. This ending marks the conclusion of Bambi's tragic and violent quest for revenge, with the survival of his offspring hinting at a legacy continuing beyond the film's events.

Yes, Bambi: The Reckoning (2025) does have a post-credit scene. In this scene, after the main characters are dealing with the fallout of Bambi's brutal revenge rampage, a young fawn is discovered imprisoned and mistreated by two characters, Tyler and Eddie, in a nearby garage. While the adults are distracted, Bambi suddenly appears from the shadows and violently kills Tyler by decapitating him. Eddie then becomes Bambi's next victim, suffering a gruesome attack where Bambi rips off both his legs and head. This scene sets up further horror and chaos, hinting at ongoing violence and possibly future story developments within the Twisted Childhood Universe (the "Poohniverse").

Bambi's violent rampage is driven by grief and revenge after the death of his mother, who was killed by humans. This loss transforms Bambi into a mutated, monstrous creature seeking vengeance against those responsible and anyone who crosses his path.

The main human characters hunted by Bambi are a mother named Xana and her son Benji. They become targets after a car crash in the forest involving Bambi. They encounter other characters such as Simon, Jo, and Michael, who have varying roles in the conflict with Bambi.

Simon is revealed to be the person who killed Faline, Bambi's mother, and also dumped toxic waste into the river. He plans to trap and kill Bambi, showing no concern for the collateral damage. Ultimately, Simon is abandoned by his allies and killed by a mutant rabbit.

Besides his own rampage, Bambi's presence is linked to other mutated animals, including killer rabbits that attack Simon. The film features inventive kills involving these animals, adding to the horror elements beyond just Bambi himself.

By the end, Bambi is fatally shot by Michael, who is then killed by Mary, a character who recovers from dementia. Bambi bleeds out in front of Xana, Benji, and his own offspring, whom Xana and Benji return to him earlier. Simon is killed by a mutant rabbit, and Jo sacrifices herself to try to kill Bambi but fails.

Bambi: The Reckoning (2025) is not family friendly. It is a horror movie with graphic and violent content that is inappropriate for children or sensitive viewers.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting aspects include:

• Graphic violence and gore, including scenes of animals and humans being killed or attacked in brutal ways.
• A monstrous, terrifying version of Bambi with sharp teeth and twisted antlers, designed to be frightening rather than cute.
• Blood-spattered scenes and intense revenge-driven carnage.
• Dark, grim tone with themes of revenge and horror rather than innocence or family-friendly storytelling.
• Some low-budget CGI effects that emphasize the horror and grotesque nature of the creature.

The film is described as a revenge-horror with a "brutal, blood-spattered revision" of the classic Bambi story, featuring a monstrous creature and violent confrontations. It is part of a trend of turning childhood stories into horror films and is intended for mature audiences, not children or those sensitive to horror violence.