MovieChat Forums > Watership Down (1978) Discussion > The only animated film more disturbing t...

The only animated film more disturbing than Bambi!


Yep I said it!

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Bambi wasn't disturbing. Having a sad scene doesn't make a movie disturbing.



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It really depends on one's personal definition of what's disturbing. There's a reason why millions of people have near-primal memories of that.

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Hey, if you thought this was a disturbing animated movie, you should look at "Felidae" (if you have the stomach for it ).


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What's worse with Felidae is that the violence and horror has little to no actual point, inherently making it more disturbing or, indeed, dangerous than either WS or Bambi could ever be.

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It does have a point. The story is about a cat trying to solve the murders of other cats. Such a plot could hardly be put across without any violence, could it? It also isn't aimed at children (there's sex, too) - it's based on an adult book.

I do think a U rating is inappropriate for Watership Down given the amount of violence and death (and the use of the word "piss"). This film isn't really intended for children either, but a U rating suggests that it is.

I personally didn't find Bambi at all disturbing, though I can see why children might be upset by his mother's death, even though it happens off-screen. I would have thought most people would be more disturbed by the parental death in The Lion King than the one in Bambi - you see Mufasa plunging to his death, his broken body lying on the ground, and baby Simba crying and trying to wake him up. Much worse than Bambi, in which you see nothing.




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Bambi wasn't a disturbing film. That one moment in the film is indeed very eerie but on the whole it's your usual Disney fare.

There are countless animated films out there (a lot of them originating from Asia) that are WAY more traumatizing than that film.

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Not true. Bambi is more disturbing.

"I can't take it anymore!" (flies out and gets shot)

The transition from the nice april showers song to the creepy one.

Bambi's mom dying.

I didn't like the "Get up, Bambi!" part

The creepy owl with the wierd eyes that spins his head round and round.

I didn't like the part where Bambi fights the other deer.

And for some reason, little Bambi constantly just kind of creeped me out (like, seriously, "MMMMMMbird-duh.")

I think some people are more creeped out by what they see, and some more by what they hear. I don't really get weirded out by what I see, but sounds can really freak me out. Bambi sounds very scary. And Watership Down kind of does, too. I can see why the OP found them both so disturbing.

But, @blbbg1, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5mcc47xD8

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"50% of Avatar is not Avatar: The Last Airbender." --Te Si Te

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All that plus the fire.

My parents took my birthday party to the theater to see Bambi when it first came out. I must have been five or six.

While I remember some of the cute stuff the forest fire and Bambi's Mother dying haunted me for a long time. (I was also haunted by the dinosaurs dying in Fantasia so much that is the ONLY part of that movie I remembered.)

I've since seen Bambi as an adult but as such wondered what possessed Disney to show those parts, even as sanitized as they were. Of course, this is a corporation that regularly killed off the dog. Old Yeller, Bristle Face. As long as the dog left puppies it was OK to kill off the dog. It's like it wasn't a good movie unless the dog died.

Dumbo is another one. I hated that film for the abuse the Mother got for protecting her baby and the baby being bullied and humiliated. And it's like the end made it all better, no hard feelings.

Pongo was that way too.

I'm 61 and I read spoilers to make sure the dog doesn't die in a movie. If it gets a crying puppy on "doesthedogdiedotcom" then I don't watch it, I don't care how good it's supposed to be.

While I can handle some deaths in documentaries I don't need them in my "entertainment".

I stopped watching this movie right after Violet "disappeared". Not planning on watching the rest. OR reading the book.

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I'm guessing you haven't seen any anime, especially not any of the more extreme varieties. I would link to some but after a quick trawl through Youtube I'm now feeling rather sad and creeped out, I'm going to spare you that.

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I've seen LOTS of anime. For years I watched pretty much everything I found even remotely interesting. Watership Down is still the movie that scared me the most and I've seen some really messed up anime.

I was only 8 when I watched watership down thougj and I was 18-25 when I was in my anime phase.

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What do you think of Akira, Fist of the north Star, Wicked City, Urotsukidoji, Ninja Scroll etc.?

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I'd say it was more gory and realistic than Bambi, not necessarily more disturbing. I feel Bambi works more off of tension, heavy/dark colours (mainly in the stag fight) and what you can't see.

I found the idea of the animals vs. 'Man' to be extremely scary particularly, in the forest fire scene, especially when you give a voice and emotions to the animals, I find it really disturbing to be realistic in the way that animals really would have that fear when being hunted. Also, 'Man' is never actually seen in the film, but you can see the animals seeing them (i.e. Bambi's mother's fear of them and terrified realization when they find the new grass, the stags looking to the Great Prince when it is announced Man is coming and Bambi's panic) also got to me as well.

The death scene was obviously extremely horrible, the fight scene and the dogs in the forest fire were also scary to me. I even found the Great Prince to be a little unnerving, because of his coldness (though the Patrick Stewart take on the character lightened this a little) and the way he was so detached from Bambi and everyone, and just stared him down when he met him.

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