It’s pretty common knowledge these days that the Disney-fied fairy tales we’ve all grown to love over the years usually started out as something a bit more sinister. 

Cinderella’s stepsisters cut up their feet to try to fit into the lost slipper; the evil queen in “Snow White” is made to dance in red-hot iron slippers until she falls dead; and “Sleeping Beauty,” well, we’ll just call it a non-consensual nightmare and leave it at that. 

While modern filmmakers have sanitized many of these stories to make them more family-friendly, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield decided to go in the complete opposite direction with “Pinocchio: Unstrung” and created something sinister, gruesome and surprisingly funny. The film features the voice of youngster Jude-Evan Lloyd as the titular puppet, Cameron Bell as his real, live-boy counterpart, James, and Richard Brake as James’ grandfather, Geppetto. Robert Englund—whom you might recognize as Freddy Kruger from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise—lends his voice to Cricket (of Jiminy fame), and Jessica Balmer as Mia and Jack Art Gray as Dudley play James’ best pals. 

“Pinocchio: Unstrung” is the fifth film in the Twisted Childhood Universe, also known as the Poohniverse, which first began hitting theaters in 2023 with “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.” The franchise is a shared universe of campy horror films adapted from childhood-favorite stories and fairy tales, including “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” and “Bambi: The Reckoning,” both from 2025. 

I love horror movies and adaptations—obviously—but I’ve never particularly loved body horror. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not squeamish. But it’s often just gore and guts for the sake of gore and guts. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself genuinely enjoying this bloody retelling of “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Italian writer Carlo Collodi. 

As expected, it’s a huge departure from the original 1883 story. In it, young James is sent to live with his grandfather, Geppetto, in his large mansion after his parents die. Tragedy hits again when one of James’ closest friends, Zach, dies. Geppetto, seeing how the grief has affected his grandson, sets out to create a new friend for James who will never die. 

Enter Pinocchio, who, just like his namesake, is a wooden marionette with consciousness and the ability to move and speak on his own. Initially frightened by the admittedly pretty disturbing-looking doll, James isn’t too keen to become friends with this unexplainable creature. But they soon become fast friends. 

Like the original 19th century story, Pinocchio is dissatisfied with his status as a puppet. He recognizes that Geppetto doesn’t love him the same way he loves his grandson, and he becomes disheartened when James must leave him daily for school. 

On top of that, the naive, young puppet has no good sense of right and wrong and comes under the influence of some of Geppetto’s older creations, neglected and scorned. Cricket is not the kind, moral compass that we all grew up knowing in the Disney version of the story. No, he helps Pinocchio in truly horrifying—and hilarious—ways to protect his dearest friend. 

With the dual mission of protecting James against those who have wronged him and seeking to become a real boy, Pinocchio goes on a killing spree, hacking up his victims to use their body parts as his own. The sweet, childish vocals from Lloyd along with his gleeful giggles as he carries out his rampage provide an incongruous levity to the body horror scenes. Within a single shot, prepare to go from being completely grossed out to laughing in delight—which is, frankly, the main reason I was able to enjoy the movie. 

The secondary reason is the effects. I watched the entire movie thinking the puppetry and over-the-top gruesome scenes were computer generated. But, I’m begging you: Make sure to stick around for the mid-credits scene. The filmmakers included a behind-the-scenes featurette explaining that all the scenes were created using practical effects. 

The puppets were actually puppets. The mangled faces and bodies were created the old-fashioned way with makeup and dummies. It was impressive the level of craftsmanship and artistry that went into this movie that I initially—and ashamedly—assumed would just be some low-budget, campy horror flick. I genuinely can’t wait to watch it again knowing how the puppets were created and manipulated. 

The storytelling was decent, but not mindblowing, with some nice nods to the original, but largely skips over the familiar version of the story. Pinocchio’s nose grows when he tells a lie, but it’s not really a hallmark feature of the character the way it is in the Disney version. There’s no whale, circus or blue fairy. There are some cheesy one-liners, enough for a decent laugh, and even some classic horror tropes involving an axe vs. door and a bloody shower scene. 

I’m genuinely surprised how enjoyable this movie was and am glad I forced myself to go see it. I don’t think I’m going to make campy body horror movies my whole personality from now on, but I’ll definitely catch the other Twisted Childhood Universe films when they hit theaters. 

About the writer

Danielle Haynes is the co-founder and co-editor of Booked & Screened, covering book-to-screen adaptations, film and TV development. She typically prefers paranormal and religious horror films such as “The Exorcist” and “The Conjuring” universe.