The Stream: Pinocchio’s visuals at times look really bad.

The Big Screen: Some pretty gory scenes and giggles!

The Final Bill: A gory mess of a children’s story.

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Writers: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Stars: Richard Brake, Robert Englund, Cameron Bell
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Rating: R (violent, bloody, some strong language)
Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes
Production Companies: ITN Studios, Jagged Edge Productions
Platform: Released in theaters July, 24 2026
Notable Trailers: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, One Night Only, Wild Horse Nine, The End of Oak Street

Welcome back, Streamers! This weekend we are able to fill our horror movie craving with another retelling of a children’s classic, Pinocchio Unstrung.  This dark recreation of the Pinocchio story reimagines the coming-of-age for Pinocchio as the puppet has a disturbing journey towards becoming real. As such, bloody, real-boy hijinks ensue.  Let’s see how it turned out!

If you haven’t seen, there are other movies similar to this in the Twisted Childhood Universe from Winnie the Pooh to Popeye and Peter Pan.  If you get a chance, you should check them out. I believe a few are even on the Peacock App. Here’s the thing with this story – the filmmakers are able to bring to life the most despicable telling of the story of Pinocchio, but I don’t think they really pushed it enough here. The thing to remember about these movies is that they are supposed to be a horror/dark recreation of those childhood stories in modern times. The movie has elements of the dark comedy and the sick nature of this children’s story, if depicted in reality, but it doesn’t feel original enough. This movie is nothing different from something like Tales from the Hood except it’s set in Great Britain, in a manner of speaking. Only one or two of the violent sequences seemed gory or as if the movie was pushing the envelope. As for the comedy, there was definitely at least two moments worth seeing that made me laugh out loud in the theater. I’ve been to legit comedy movies and never done that.

This movie looks very good except for the CGI creatures.  Sometimes Pinocchio and the others look creepy but at other times the creatures look almost worse than the puppets used back in the day. I actually wish the movie used a real doll for this movie and that would’ve made a huge difference.

Overall,  Pinocchio: Unstrung is a nice addition to the dark children’s story collection, but it could’ve been better. The movie keeps the feel of the original story while dialing up the gore and unnecessary killing. Some things are just poorly executed and unfortunately one of those we have to look at a bunch with Pinocchio’s CGI. Either way, grab a handle full of popcorn and check out Pinocchio: Unstrung this Halloween season when it’s definitely on someone’s streaming service.