When the Winnie-the-Pooh book entered the public domain at the start of 2022, it took no time at all for the character—best known for his depiction in Disney's animated movies—to be reminagined as...a monstrous mass murderer.
Filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield's Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was a surprise hit in 2023, grossing $7.7 million on a $50,000 budget. Since then, this horror franchise has expanded massively, with the Twisted Childhood Universe.
Along with a Pooh-centric sequel (a third chapter is in the works), we've had Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare. Eventually, we'll get an Avengers-style crossover, Poohniverse Monsters Assemble.
Next up is Pinocchio: Unstrung, and the first trailer for the movie has been released (via FearHQ.com). Like the characters mentioned above, the J. M. Barrie creation is now in the public domain, and this version has little in common with his Disney counterpart.
Setting out on a murderous rampage to become a real boy, Pinocchio discovers that the difference between wooden dolls and boys is "organs and stuff," and he'll acquire those by any means necessary.
In the trailer, he uses his razor-sharp wooden nose to impale a girl's foot as she exits the shower, before proceeding to collect someone's intestines from a victim and ripping the skin from someone else's post. The twisted new take on Jiminy Cricket, voiced by Freddie Krueger actor Robert Englund, tells Pinocchio, "Piece by piece, we'll take everything you need to be real."
Pinocchio: Unstrung is directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and produced by Scott Jeffrey, the duo behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Alongside Robert Brake and Englund, the cast includes Cameron Bell, Jessica Balmer, Jack Art Gray and Peter De Souza-Feighoney, while Emmy winner Todd Masters oversees the practical animatronics.
Frake-Waterfield said, "We built Pinocchio as a fully practical animatronic because I wanted him to feel real. This 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."
"Our Twisted Childhood Universe continues to grow in darker and more ambitious ways as we’re gearing up for Poohniverse Monsters Assemble!"
The movie doesn't have a confirmed release date, but is expected to arrive in theaters later this year.
Horror fans will no doubt find plenty to love in Pinocchio: Unstrung, though Disney die-hards are likely to be a little less enthused. Still, if you're curious about what's to come in the latest Twisted Childhood Universe movie, you can watch the gory first trailer below.