Written by: Sam Santiago
At this point, horror fans should probably just accept the fact that no childhood icon is safe anymore.
Over the last few years we’ve watched beloved public domain characters get dragged screaming into the blood soaked world of low budget horror, and honestly, this trend doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon. Winnie the Pooh was only the beginning. Now we’re staring down killer versions of Popeye, Betty Boop, Steamboat Willie-era Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Peter Pan, and pretty much every nostalgic piece of childhood comfort imaginable.
And now? Pinocchio has entered the slaughterhouse.
The final trailer for Pinocchio: Unstrung has officially dropped, giving horror fans a much nastier look at the next twisted entry in the ever growing “Poohniverse” franchise from Jagged Edge Productions. If you thought Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was unhinged, this one somehow looks even meaner, uglier, and more deranged in all the right ways. The film hits UK Theaters officially on July 24th.
What immediately stands out is the film’s genuinely creepy practical puppet work. Instead of drowning everything in cheap CGI, Pinocchio: Unstrung leans heavily into animatronics and old school creature effects courtesy of Emmy-winning FX artist Todd Masters, whose past work includes Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight and Child’s Play. The result is a wooden nightmare that feels less like a children’s fairytale and more like something discovered in a cursed evidence locker.
WATCH THE TRAILER FOR "PINOCCHIO: UNSTRUNG" BELOW
The film comes from writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the same wonderfully chaotic mind behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, with producer Scott Chambers continuing to build this bizarre interconnected horror universe one traumatized childhood memory at a time.
This version of the classic story follows young James after his grandfather Geppetto introduces him to a magical doll named Pinocchio. Predictably, things spiral straight into hell. Under the guidance of a sinister version of Jiminy Cricket played by horror legend Robert Englund, Pinocchio begins a violent crusade to eliminate “bad” people in increasingly gruesome ways.
The trailer also gives us our first proper look at Englund’s twisted take on Cricket, and somehow the idea of Freddy Krueger voicing a demonic conscience for a homicidal puppet makes perfect sense in this universe.
Richard Brake stars as Geppetto, and if there’s one actor built to play a broken old man hiding horrifying secrets, it’s Brake. The cast also includes Cameron Bell in his feature film debut.
At this point, public domain horror adaptations have become their own strange little subgenre. Some are terrible. Some are surprisingly entertaining. Most feel like fever dreams made by people who grew up equally obsessed with Disney movies and Fangoria magazines.
But whether audiences love these films or absolutely hate them, one thing is becoming painfully obvious: this is only the beginning.
As more classic characters slip into the public domain, horror filmmakers are going to keep digging them up like corpses in an old cemetery and stitching them into grotesque new forms.
Pinocchio: Unstrung looks filthy, ridiculous, violent, and completely shameless. Exactly the kind of late night horror insanity this weird new era of public domain horror was built for.
