The 2020s have been inundated with movies about Pinocchio the puppet. There was an Italian live action movie in 2019, a Russian cartoon in 2021, Disney’s official live action remake of their 1940 cartoon in 2022, and Guillermo del Toro’s version came out that same year. But the only one I personally was excited about is the independent slasher called Pinocchio: Unstrung.
The newest addition to Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s Twisted Childhood Universe (also known as the Poohnivese) hit theaters this weekend. None of my usual theaters are screening it so I traveled to an AMC 40 minutes away for the occasion. After being blown away by how much I unironically enjoyed Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 back in 2024, I started to believe this franchise actually had some potential. However, last year’s additions (Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and Bambi: The Reckoning) were average at best (you can read my thoughts about them in my 2025 movie ranking), so I quickly learned to adjust my expectations. But then Pinocchio: Unstrung restored my hope. I have vowed to continue watching the Poohniverse movies no matter what, but I am pleased to share that the newest film is genuinely pretty good.
The Story
James is a young boy who goes to live with his rich grandfather, Geppetto, after his parents pass away. After James also loses his best friend (assumedly to cancer), Geppetto vows to shield his grandson from the grief of loss forever and makes him a friend that will never die: A sentient wooden puppet named Pinocchio.
I thought it would be easy to guess how this story would be twisted into the horror genre: Creepy living puppet becomes so obsessed with becoming “a real boy” that he goes on a murderous rampage and steals his victim’s body parts to use as his own. From the trailer, it seemed like that was in fact the direction this movie would take; however, I was a bit off the mark. The Poohniverse Pinocchio does brutally murder people and collect their body parts, yes, but I did not expect him to be so adorable. When I first saw his design for the movie, I thought he was super scary (as do all the characters when they meet him for the first time), yet his character is so sweet, innocent, and endearing that instead of expecting to have nightmares about him I left the theater wanting to go out and buy a little plushie version of him. I won’t spoil who puts these ideas in his head, but he didn’t discover a lust for blood on his own accord.
I was worried that we would never get an explanation about how exactly Geppetto created Pinocchio, but in the end I was ultimately satisfied with the information provided. Some details were a little unclear (such as who exactly the Wood Mother is and what Cricket has to do with everything), but overall I got the gist enough to not be left with more questions than answers.
The Acting
Oftentimes with indie horror movies, one of their biggest downfalls is the lack of convincing actors. This was not the case in Pinocchio: Unstrung. Cameron Bell, who plays the leading role of James, is an incredibly talented child actor. Geppetto is played by Richard Brake, who while not a huge name in horror, is experienced in the industry: He plays Sheriff Rotter in The Strangers reboot, Frank in Barbarian, and, although the show itself is not necessarily horror, the terrifying ice zombie overlord the Night King in Game of Thrones. He also makes an appearance in four out of the nine movies directed by Rob Zombie. The cast even includes horror icon Freddy Kreuger himself, Robert Englund, as Cricket. Plus, Pinocchio’s voice was cute as a button.
The Effects
During the end credits, a screen announces that the film uses practical effects and puppeteering, followed by behind-the-scenes footage of how they did so. In this age of AI where more and more media is now lacking human touch and “live action” movies are more computer generated than not, seeing these handmade pieces was such a breath of fresh air. I was a little bothered by how poorly the Wood Mother’s mouth movements synced with her voice, but now that I know she was a literal puppet, I’ll give them some grace out of respect for the art of puppetry.
Unfortunately, this made the obviously-CGI Cricket stick out like a sore thumb. On his first appearance, he looked more like a Gremlin fed after midnight than anything, and I didn’t realize who or what he was supposed to be until I noticed he had wings. To be fair, though, while it’s probably technically possible to make such a tiny puppet with convincingly moving insect wings, it certainly would be extremely difficult, and we have to keep in mind that this is an indie film.
The Gore
In addition to Pinocchio and his kin, the practical effects mentioned above were also used for the purposes of gore, and my god was this film gory.Despite knowing to expect blood and guts from a slasher film, the deaths were often so graphic that they caught me off guard. We see a broken spine, crushed skulls, hand-flayed skin, a needle-stabbed eye, disfigured jaws, extracted teeth, a scalped head, and more, all in explicit detail. You can tell that the team put an excruciating amount of effort into making these injuries look as real as possible and they want you to see the fruits of their labor. There’s only one kill that occurs entirely offscreen, and this was an extremely merciful choice because it happens to a character the audience can’t help but root for. Seeing that character’s corpse would have been more emotionally devastating than visually disgusting, and this film’s goal is to churn our stomachs, not break our hearts.
The Comedy
One of my favorites parts about seeing a film in theaters is when the whole audience laughs at a funny moment together. This movie was chock full of those moments. Some of the jokes were cheap, such as the ol’ reliable hearing a little kid drop the f-bomb, but others were genuinely hilarious. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmareand Bambi: The Reckoning both had extremely serious tones throughout, but Pinocchio: Unstrung remembered not to take itself too seriously. Instead of relying on the goofy-best-friend character Dudley as the sole comedic relief, the humor was frequent and came from multiple sources. Even Geppetto had a silly line.
That being said, not all of the jokes landed. Nearly every single one of Cricket’s lines were painfully cringe-worthy. Most of them were intended to be funny, but the only laughable thing about them was just how bad they were. It was almost insulting to give such ridiculous lines to a legend like Robert Englund. In addition,a lot of Pinocchio’s dialogue—especially towards the end—was meant to be taken seriously but was just way too cheesy. Lines like “I’m not your puppet anymore” land much better in G-rated coming-of-age stories than in a slasher like this. If I’m mistaken and these serious moments were intentionally laughably bad, they fell super flat.
The References to Other Poohniverse Movies
The Twisted Childhood Universe is leading up to an Avengers-esque crossover movie tentatively titled Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, and Pinocchio: Unstrung made sure to remind us that it takes place in the same universe as the other seemingly unrelated movies in the franchise. The most palpable connection is made when we see Christopher Robin as James’s doctor. Later, a character pulls up a song on his device and the cover art is the poster for Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. We learned in the second Blood and Honey that the first movie exists as a movie within this universe; Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare nodded to this by including a character wearing a Blood and Honey t-shirt. Lastly, Michael Darling fromPeter Pan’s Neverland Nightmaremakes an appearance at some point according to the cast list, though I admit I didn’t catch this.
Overall
It appears I’m not the only one who was impressed by Pinocchio: Unstrung, as its ratings on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Letterboxd are all higher than any of the other Poohniverse movies so far. In fact, each new installment to the franchise has consistently received higher ratings than the film before it. If this pattern continues, the Twisted Childhood Universe is only going to keep getting better—and although I’m hesitant to get my hopes up, if Pinocchio: Unstrung is any indicator, they certainly do seem to be headed in the right direction. At the moment, there are only two more movies in production (Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 and the aforementioned Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble), although the producers have shared their intentions for six more. Pinocchio: Unstrung proved that they are capable of making a genuinely good movie, so hopefully their upcoming projects keep this momentum going!
