PINOCCHIO: UNSTRUNG Trailer Turns the Wooden Boy Into an Organ-Harvesting Slasher
If you thought Pinocchio just wanted to be a real boy, think again. The trailer for Pinocchio: Unstrung has arrived, and this version of the classic fairy tale rips the story apart and stitches it back together with blood and stolen body parts.
From the team that gave us Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, this latest entry in the Twisted Childhood Universe takes Geppetto’s wooden creation and turns him into a full-blown slasher villain.
In this nightmare spin on the beloved story, Pinocchio discovers that the difference between a wooden puppet and a real boy comes down to “organs and stuff.” So naturally, he decides to collect what he’s missing.
The trailer doesn’t hold back. We see Pinocchio drive his razor-sharp wooden nose through a girl’s foot as she steps out of the shower. He tears the skin from a screaming man’s face.
There’s even a moment where he appears to gather up a pile of intestines like he’s finishing a grocery run. It’s grotesque, unapologetic, and absolutely aimed at horror fans who love seeing childhood nostalgia twisted into something savage.
Egging him on through all of this carnage is a seriously unhinged Jiminy Cricket, voiced by Robert Englund, who horror fans will forever associate with Freddy Krueger. This version of the iconic conscience is anything but gentle. At one point he tells Pinocchio, “Piece by piece, we’ll take everything you need to be real,” making it clear that this cricket isn’t here to guide anyone toward moral redemption.
Playing Geppetto is Richard Brake, who brings his own brand of intensity to the role of the obsessed creator. The cast also includes Cameron Bell, Jessica Balmer, Jack Art Gray, and Peter De Souza-Feighoney. Todd Masters is overseeing the practical animatronics, and that hands-on approach looks like it’s paying off in a big way.
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield leaned heavily into practical effects for the character. He explained, “We built Pinocchio as a fully practical animatronic because I wanted him to feel real. T
“his is a twisted coming-of-age story told from the puppet’s perspective: a creation struggling for autonomy while being manipulated by the sinister forces around him, from Robert Englund’s sinister ‘Jiminy Cricket’ to Richard Brake’s obsessive Geppetto.”
Frake-Waterfield teams up again with producer Scott Jeffrey under their Jagged Edge Productions banner. The duo previously shocked audiences with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and have continued expanding their low-budget horror slate with titles like Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare.
A third Blood and Honey is gearing up to shoot, and the crossover film Poohniverse Monsters Assemble is also in development, bringing all these warped childhood icons together for one chaotic showdown.
Frake-Waterfield teased what’s coming next, saying, “Our Twisted Childhood Universe continues to grow in darker and more ambitious ways as we’re gearing up for Poohniverse Monsters Assemble!”
ITN Distribution will handle the release of Pinocchio: Unstrung, with a theatrical date currently being scheduled worldwide, while Premiere Entertainment Group is handling sales.
Pinocchio: Unstrung is going straight for the jugular, and horror fans who love this ridiculous wave of public-domain carnage are probably going to love it.