Pinocchio Unstrung

Call me crazy, but I have come to kind-of like The Twisted Childhood Universe. 

In 2023, when Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was released, it looked like little more than a bad cash-in. The Winnie-the-Pooh copyright had just expired and it was one of those things where it seemed like the director didn’t care about quality and only cared about striking while the iron was hot and making a butt load of cash.

Unfortunately, the truth wasn’t too far off from that. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was bad. It was, in fact, quite bad. The filmmakers were rewarded – the film grossed 7.7 million off a budget reported at around fifty grand. I met the announcement of a sequel with a sigh.

In a quick turn-around, the sequel was released the very next year, and grossed almost exactly the same amount as the previous film (7.6 million), although the budget was more than ten times its predecessor. Thing is though, it wasn’t bad. I never got around to writing a review of it so I can’t exactly say where I think it lands, but I can absolutely attest it was a fun slasher film and a monumental improvement over the last one.

Then, the next year, they released Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmares. I haven’t gotten around to watching Bambi just yet, but I did watch and review Nightmares. Wasn’t bad either! It wore its influences on its sleeve, borrowing heavily from IT and The Black Phone, among others, but it was a genuinely decent film!

In 2026 comes their fifth film, Pinocchio Unstrung, which is, as the name would suggest, a horror adaptation of the Pinocchio story. The film was directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the head honcho of the brand, who sat out for Bambi and Peter Pan, but did direct the second Winnie-the-Pooh, so, the improvement in quality wasn’t a case of a bad director being replaced.

At first, Pinocchio Unstrung didn’t have my attention. I think part of me couldn’t help to associate to Pinocchio’s Revenge and the barrage of expired intellectual property horror we’ve gotten over the decades but still think is some kind of new phenomenon. Then, I saw some of the special-effects and I saw that Robert Englund would be playing the role of The Talking Cricket, and I thought, okay, if this could give Robert Englund something to have a little fun with, it will be more than worth the price of admission for me.

Unfortunately, Englund isn’t in it very much. It was too late to back out though, and it was at least cool to hear his voice again and to have a character that feels like it’s somewhere in the same lane as the character he’s known for. In the second Winnie-the-Pooh movie, it was clear that one was also heavily inspired by A Nightmare on Elm Street, which shows the filmmakers are fans of old-school slasher movies.

The film is about on the order of what you would expect for a horror movie about Pinocchio as far as its story is concerned. It’s easy to forget, considering how exploitative the concepts may feel, that this is actually a product of the United Kingdom and not the United States – so, expect some British accents. Pinocchio was first released in Italy, but having this be made in the UK inadvertently helps set a certain mood. The concept of the Twisted Childhood Universe evokes good, old fashioned American schlock, but the actors and the general melancholic gleam and humor evokes something close to Hammer Horror. All I’m saying is, there is a certain vibe here that was also in Neverland Nightmares, that works better than you might think it does.

The special-effects for the violence also puts over a certain vibe. These were done by The Prosthetic Studio, but, for some reason, I thought it was Damien Leone (from Terrifier fame) and was fully accepting of that until the moment I sat down and wrote this review. Damien does good work, and so, in turn, I suppose me making that connection suggests The Prosthetic Studio also does good work. And they do, but they definitely went for a more stylized and grotesque approach. I don’t know the best way to describe their makeup decisions, but everything looks … meatier for lack of a better phrase. They went with a more is more approach with it, and I think it works to the movies’ advantage because of how at odds it can feel with itself.

In the story, Pinocchio is created by Geppetto as a friend for his grandson after experiencing a great loss. At first, Pinocchio is portrayed with the same type of childlike wonder as what we have come to expect from the titular character. He and Geppetto’s grandson are chummy and it even carries with it a coming-of-age charm. Pinocchio is cute, … in the right light, and unsettling, in most others.

You know how in some killer doll movies where a mother brings home a doll for their daughter, or whatever, and you can’t wrap your head around why someone would bring their child the ugliest, most disturbing looking doll ever made? Pinocchio in this film isn’t shown as what I would call a cute depiction, but it looks like a realistic depiction of Pinocchio that only strictly feels like a horror character when they want to him come across that way.

The character is portrayed as having an established set of principles that are used to rationalize everything he does, but he doesn’t really seem to grasp or care about the gravity of what he’s doing – which is, in the simplest terms, killing anyone he believes is bad or deserving of death. This is all committed, in some part, to make himself into a ‘real boy,’ believing that taking what he lacks from his victims will make it so.

The practical effects for Pinocchio are impressive, especially considering the budget attached to the film. You can tell the film was smartly shot and problems, smartly concealed, using darkness to hide any discrepancies it may have wanted to hide. The humor is dark and it did occasionally get a couple chuckles out of me. I appreciate that the film never leaned into “so bad, it’s good” territory or Troma-esque campiness, and instead, played its concept with a straight face – that’s a pretty big win for me, personally.

It tries to fit a lot of character development into its brisk runtime. I think this is the type of film you expect to clock out someplace shy of the ninety minute mark, and the filmmakers do exactly that. At the same time, I feel like they could have gotten more out of Pinocchio’s development than they did. What we got is fine and certainly par for the course, but I couldn’t help but walk away thinking in hindsight that they had it in their grasp to reach further than they did.

In summation, Pinocchio Unstrung is a good, fun film. Rhys Frake-Waterfield continues to improve as a director, and, with an able cast, they are able to put together a solid new entry in their horror universe. I recommend it.