Pinocchio Unstrung

Pinocchio Unstrung arrives carrying the baggage of an entire cinematic experiment. Since Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, writer-director Rhys Frake-Waterfield has built a business and, increasingly, a recognisable aesthetic out of transforming public-domain childhood figures into horror villains. The concept once seemed designed primarily to provoke social-media curiosity, but this fifth instalment in the Twisted Childhood Universe suggests a filmmaker beginning to understand what his strange franchise can actually offer. Inspired by the 1883 novel by Carlo Collodi, whose original pages were considerably crueler and more macabre than their later family-friendly adaptations suggest, Pinocchio Unstrung is not a desecration of an entirely innocent tale so much as an exaggerated return to its darkest instincts. The result remains rough, derivative and occasionally juvenile, yet it is also the most technically accomplished and unexpectedly affecting entry in this eccentric series.

The story centres on James, a grieving fourteen-year-old played by Cameron Bell, who moves into the imposing London home of his grandfather Geppetto after losing both his parents and his closest friend. Geppetto, portrayed with unnerving restraint by Richard Brake, has attempted to answer death by creating something beyond its reach: a living wooden boy intended to become James’s permanent companion. Initially frightened by the gnarled creature hiding in the corridors, James gradually treats Pinocchio as a brother and secretly takes him into the outside world. There the puppet witnesses cruelty, school bullying and the everyday humiliations inflicted upon his new friend. Having absorbed the lesson from a wildlife documentary that a herd must protect its own, Pinocchio interprets loyalty with catastrophic literalness. Persuaded that human organs might also turn him into a real boy, he begins harvesting the bodies of anyone he believes has hurt James. It is an effective corruption of the familiar moral journey: instead of learning how to become human through honesty and empathy, this Pinocchio tries to assemble humanity as though it were merely a collection of spare parts.

That idea gives the film a melancholy dimension beneath its gleeful carnage. Pinocchio is murderous, but he is not initially malicious; he is a child without an ethical vocabulary, guided by adults and creatures whose advice turns fear into violence. Jude Evan Lloyd finds precisely the right register in the voice performance, combining guileless curiosity with flashes of foul-mouthed aggression. The contrast between the puppet’s young voice and the brutality of his actions produces the film’s best black comedy, while his desire to belong lends him more personality than the interchangeable killers of earlier Twisted Childhood productions. James is equally important to that balance, and Cameron Bell convincingly moves between loneliness, wonder and mounting horror as the friend created to heal him becomes another source of trauma. Their relationship occasionally recalls Child’s Play and M3GAN, sometimes too transparently, but the emphasis on bereavement gives this familiar killer-doll framework an identity of its own. Pinocchio does not simply want a body; he wants permanence in a world where James has learned that every attachment can disappear.

The film’s greatest achievement is unquestionably physical. Designed by Todd Masters and realised through the practical-effects specialists at MastersFX, Pinocchio has weight, texture and an authentically uncomfortable presence. His splintered bark, hollow gaze and slightly hesitant movements make him look less like a manufactured toy than something uprooted from diseased soil. As stolen pieces of flesh begin altering his appearance, the design becomes a grotesque visual record of his misunderstanding of human nature. The practical gore follows the same old-fashioned philosophy: bodies bend, split and peel apart with a tactile excess that digital effects rarely reproduce on this scale. A gymnasium accident involving a treadmill and weights establishes the mischievously revolting tone, while later encounters involving dentistry, workshop tools and Pinocchio’s famously extendable nose push the violence toward Grand Guignol absurdity. The closing credits’ behind-the-scenes material is particularly revealing, showing how much mechanical craft sits behind a production that could easily have concealed its budget with weightless computer imagery.

The supporting voices bring welcome genre credentials. Robert Englund turns Cricket into a miniature corrupter whose rasping amusement recalls the taunting theatricality that made him a horror icon, while Emma Tate gives the rooted, witch-like Wood Mother an appropriately ancient menace. Yet the screenplay divides Pinocchio’s corruption between these two figures when one stronger tempter might have produced a cleaner dramatic line. Similar problems affect the human ensemble: school friends and bullies are introduced largely as future victims, dialogue sometimes mistakes vulgarity for wit, and several emotional revelations arrive before the film has earned their weight. Richard Brake, however, gives Geppetto a troubling mixture of tenderness, secrecy and moral decay. Rather than playing him as an immediately flamboyant mad scientist, he allows affection and control to coexist, suggesting that Pinocchio’s warped understanding of love may have been inherited from his creator. Even his imperfect British accent cannot erase the quiet threat carried by his face whenever Geppetto insists that everything has been done for the boy’s protection.

Visually, cinematographer Vince Knight makes good use of Geppetto Manor’s Gothic interiors, although several artificial backgrounds and an occasionally muddy sound mix expose the production’s limitations. The music by Andrew Scott Bell helps preserve the dark-fable atmosphere, but the scares themselves rarely generate sustained dread; this is far more effective as splatter comedy than as nightmare fuel. There is also an unpleasant imbalance in some of the violence, particularly when the camera lingers on the punishment of young women with a relish the story never meaningfully examines. Such moments reveal the weakness of the film’s provocation: when every boundary is crossed simply because it can be, transgression starts to feel less daring than mechanical. At roughly eighty minutes, the narrative moves quickly, but speed cannot entirely disguise its episodic construction, in which thinly sketched encounters function as corridors leading from one effects showcase to the next.

Still, Pinocchio Unstrung represents genuine progress for Rhys Frake-Waterfield. It understands that a knowingly ridiculous premise needs humour, craftsmanship and at least a trace of emotional sincerity—not solemnity masquerading as importance. The film remains an unapologetic B-movie, indebted to better killer-doll stories and held back by inconsistent writing, but its practical creature work deserves admiration and its central friendship gives the slaughter an unusually tragic pulse. Most importantly, it discovers an intriguing irony inside the source material: Pinocchio becomes physically more human with every victim, yet each addition carries him further away from humanity itself. Viewers already hostile to the Twisted Childhood Universe are unlikely to be converted, but devotees of animatronics, extravagant gore and mischievously corrupted folklore will find a surprisingly spirited production. This wooden boy is not quite real cinema magic, but for the first time in this franchise, one can clearly see the strings—and appreciate the skill pulling them.

Pinocchio Unstrung
Written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Produced by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Scott Chambers
Starring  Richard Brake, Robert Englund, Cameron Bell, Jessica Balmer, Jude-Evan Lloyd
Cinematography : Vince Knight
Edited by Dan Allen
Music by Andrew Scott Bell
Production company : Jagged Edge Productions
Distributed by Altitude Film Distribution (UK), Viva Pictures (United States)
Release dates : 11 April 2026 (Brussels), 24 July 2026 (United States)
Running time : 82 minutes

Viewed on August 23, 2026