Making films out of fairy-tale characters that have entered the public domain and no longer hold copyright is a commercially quite successful move. Especially if you are a lesser-known director, you can easily benefit from the popularity of these characters. But that alone is not enough; you have to transform them into something completely different so that you can truly contribute to the art of cinema.
This requires a certain vision. Rhys Frake-Waterfield is a director who possesses that vision. For a long time now, he has been taking the most beloved faces of our childhood—Winnie-the-Pooh, Bambi, Peter Pan, and now Pinocchio—and placing them inside horror cinema. For example, in Bambi: The Reckoning (2025), he turned Bambi into a savage deer seeking revenge for his mother’s death.
Instead of adapting the classic stories as they are, he prefers to turn them upside down. Jason Brooks tried a similar formula last year with The Death of Snow White. To be honest, I prefer these to the live-action adaptations that remake hundred-year-old animations—or even films that are only ten years old, as we saw with the example of Moana—shot for shot. Because at least they bring a new idea to cinema. Of course, we consume everything so quickly that even this idea I call “new” already feels like it has started to age. Still, I genuinely love these films for the advancement of the art of cinema, especially because they are independent productions.
Pinocchio Unstrung turns the classic Pinocchio tale into a dark horror story. Young James, who has lost his family and his closest friend, goes to live with his grandfather Geppetto. Wanting to ease his loneliness, Geppetto creates a talking, walking wooden puppet for his grandson: Pinocchio. At first this puppet seems innocent and devoted, but soon he becomes obsessed with protecting James from every kind of “evil” and starts killing the people around him for the sake of that protection. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: this is basically M3GAN.
To be honest, yes. It really is. And this is exactly the point where, for me, these kinds of films lose the exciting claim of turning children’s fairy tales into horror movies: by imitating horror stories that have already been told over and over. I think this is the only place where the film stumbles.
But at the same time I can’t help thinking: what stories are even left to tell? Apart from the thousands of films released every year, this is already director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s fifth film in the genre. Of course he ends up repeating himself. Even though the film realizes how excessively obvious this imitation is and adds a plot twist revealing that the soul of James’s dead friend is inside Pinocchio, it still doesn’t fully convince. This surprise feels more like a last-minute attempt to make the structure it draws inspiration from look different rather than actually hiding it.
Narrative flaws aside, Pinocchio Unstrung offers a quite enjoyable experience that is worth watching in the cinema. The puppets that blend practical effects with visual effects create wonderful visuals. Pinocchio’s appearance is terrifying. The Cricket is the same way. Visually, the film recalls those great little-known horror movies from the 90s; this aesthetic is extremely satisfying for me. In today’s cinema, where images are becoming increasingly dirty, digitalized, and cheap, seeing things like this is truly enchanting. The black humor and horror elements are also perfectly in place. You can even feel at times as if you are watching a Sam Raimi film. The movie aims more to entertain than to scare, and it does so quite consciously. In short, although Pinocchio Unstrung occasionally makes you grimace because Rhys Frake-Waterfield cannot hide his creative imitations, overall it is a very entertaining production that clearly has genuinely sharp minds behind it.
