Pinocchio: Unstrung is a twisted take on a children’s classic, breathing a twisted new life replete with gore and goofiness into the tale of Pinocchio. The most recent addition into the Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU), a cinematic universe of horror films featuring now-public domain characters of childhood stories, Pinocchio: Unstrung loosely draws on characters and motives from Carlo Collodi’s original tale to thinly veil the film’s true intention: to be as gory as possible. 

Using shadow puppets and voiceover, the film introduces to us the characters of James (Cameron Bell), an orphan whose best friend recently died, and his eccentric grandfather Geppetto (Richard Brake), a rich and secretive recluse. After a conversation about grief which felt contrived, glib, yet somehow still confusing, Geppetto introduces James to Pinocchio, hoping for them to be friends so James no longer has to endure bereavement—that pesky byproduct of human-to-human connection. James’ reaction to seeing the terrifying wooden puppet of Pinocchio running towards him—scrambling away and exclaiming “what the fuck was that” in his high-pitched British received pronunciation—successfully asserts the movie’s comedic inclinations. 

Pinocchio is a fully practical animatronic puppet, and he looked great on the screen, an uncanny blend of naïve British boy and bloodthirsty creature. I admire the film’s dedication to physical effects, especially in its puppetry. The wooden blinking, stiff gestures and awkward walk could never have been achieved as well with VFX.

Despite James’s initial and justified reservations, he soon befriends Pinocchio—they’re both young and lonely, after all. James teaches Pinocchio about biology, highlighting that internal organs differentiate Pinocchio’s puppet body from James’s human one, and Pinocchio picks up a rudimentary lesson on morality—protect your pack—while watching a nature documentary.

Soon, against Geppetto’s instructions, James decides to sneak Pinocchio into school. Pinocchio, presumably sick of being in James’ bag the whole day, wanders off into the staff gym and startles a lady sprinting on a treadmill, setting off a chain of rather unfortunate and very bloody events. This clarifies the film’s agenda of being shocking and gory rather than tense or scary. There was no suspense leading up to this moment, to looming threat or uncertain outcome staring us down. It was just gore for its own sake. Not strictly a bad thing, but it does limit how impactful a film can be.

The rest of the film amounts to Pinocchio killing people who he believes to threaten James, a manifestation of his simple “protect the pack” morality, and stealing their body parts so he can be a real boy like James. These brutal killings are egged on by the nefarious Jiminy Cricket (Robert Englund), a peculiarly flat character whose only role is to encourage the violence Pinocchio is already intent on and without whom the movie would develop identically. 

Credit where it’s due, the Pinocchio killing scenes were well-crafted. The physical effects were disgusting and elicited strong responses from the Monster Fest crowd. The killings also verged on camp at times, particularly when Pinocchio started impaling his victims with his nose. But, just like the first deaths in the staff gym, these deaths were not impactful beyond their gore. 

Disappointingly, the most shocking image in the film, a sewn-up puppet Pinocchio made from his victims’ body parts, dangling from the rafters from strings of intestines, had no reason to be there. While it shocked and horrified, it also was incredibly out of character, arising from neither of Pinocchio’s motives to protect James or to become a real boy. I relish films that prioritise gore over plot and character, but a film must still respect its narrative framework, no matter how thin it is—explicitly confusing characters like this is bad writing. 

The movie also tried to carry through on the comedy it hinted at earlier on, which it only half succeeded at. The bit of a young British voice, whether it be James’s or Pinocchio’s, saying obscene things became tired quickly. There were two other gags involving James’s friend’s use of his inhaler and Pinocchio misunderstanding genitalia—these were well-received, but didn’t save the muddled tone of the film. Unlike Obsession, which used comedy effectively, the humour in Pinocchio: Unstrung wasn’t sustained or original enough to convince me that the movie was actually funny. Rather, the jokes were occasional and awkward, never quite fitting with the other pieces of the project.

The film’s redeeming factor was the character of Pinocchio. He was a genuinely complex killer, harbouring conflicting forces of innocence and violence, naivete and bloodlust, altruism and selfishness. He repeatedly states he is killing people to protect James; he innocently uses the phrase “make dead” instead of “kill”; he doesn’t know what he’s doing is wrong. On the other hand, he kills people in obscenely gory ways; he collects their organs for himself; he seems to relish in the killing he’s doing. This duplicity was mirrored in the design of Pinocchio’s animatronic puppet: small and sweet, reminiscent of a young boy, but with sinister eyes and a cracked grey visage. 

While far from compelling in terms of its writing, Pinocchio: Unstrung is a movie that does exactly what it sets out to do: shock, provoke and disgust. It wasn’t an inspired use of its source material, which seemed more an inconvenience impeding the film’s gory fantasies than anything else, but the beautiful animatronics and Pinocchio’s complex character saved the film from being monotone.