Pinocchio Unstrung is a 2026 British independent slasher film written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. It is the fifth installment in the Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) and serves as a horror retelling of Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. The film stars Richard Brake, Robert Englund, Cameron Bell, and Jessica Balmer, with Jude-Evan Lloyd as the voice of the title character. It follows Geppetto's grandson James, who develops a friendship with Pinocchio until his naïve nature results in the puppet going on a crusade to eliminate all things bad.
First announced in January 2024 as a Pinocchio-based horror film, the film was subsequently revealed to be set in the TCU shared continuity. The cast was announced between November 2024 and October 2025, with Peter DeSouza-Feighoney and Scott Chambers reprising their roles from Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare and Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 as Michael Darling and Christopher Robin, respectively.
Pinocchio Unstrung premiered at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival on 11 April 2026, before it was theatrically released worldwide on 24 July 2026, by ITN Distribution. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
Fourteen-year-old James is sent to live with his grandfather Geppetto after his parents perish in a car accident. He makes friends with two other children, Zach and Michael, but Zach dies from terminal cancer and Michael is forced to move due to his mother Mary's new job as a hypnotherapist at the nearby town of Ashdown.[a] Geppetto promises to build a friend who will never abandon his grandson again.
One year later, James and his classmates Mia and Dudley are constantly bullied by high school students Trey and Logan. That night, James is awakened by strange noises and enters the basement where Geppetto works. He introduces James to Pinocchio, a sentient wooden puppet whose nose grows every time he lies. Geppetto explains he built Pinocchio to be James' new friend.
As James and Pinocchio bond to a brother-like friendship, the latter learns about human anatomy and wishes to become a real boy. While James is at school, Pinocchio enters the basement and finds a disfigured wooden creature who introduces herself as Pinocchio's "Wood Mother". She reminds Pinocchio that he is just a puppet and will need human organs to become real. The next day, James takes Pinocchio to school; he explores the gym, but accidentally causes a chain reaction that kills James' teacher with a treadmill. Later, James introduces Pinocchio to Mia and Dudley.
While returning home in a taxi, a drunk driver crashes into them and James is hospitalised under the care of Dr. Christopher Robin.[b] Remembering the Wood Mother's words and realising that perhaps he should eliminate the people who harm James, Pinocchio sneaks into the driver's hospital room, rips the skin off his face and disembowels him to put his organs into his wooden chest. James returns home and, along with Mia and Dudley, enters the basement and finds notes written by Geppetto about his "failed works". Meanwhile, Pinocchio tells his Wood Mother about the killings, who congratulates him. A talkative cricket with a humanoid body is introduced to Pinocchio to "keep [him] on the right path and obey the grown-ups," who encourages him to kill anybody who has put James in danger. Together, they murder James' school dentist to take out her teeth.
James, Mia, and Dudley watch tapes that reveal Geppetto created more wooden puppets before Pinocchio, whom he destroyed because he considered them imperfect to be James' friends. Upon learning about Pinocchio's killing spree, James, Mia, and Dudley attempt to warn Trey and Logan as they are his next targets. Pinocchio arrives at Logan's house and breaks his girlfriend Georgia's jaw with an axe in the pool. The Cricket then fatally electrocutes her while Pinocchio rips Logan's tongue and eyes. In Trey's house, Pinocchio kills his girlfriend Amanda, tears off her scalp to use it, and murders Trey by impaling his skull with his growing nose. Pinocchio later wears the skin of one of his victims, even creating a "puppet" of his own out of the various parts of his victims.
Geppetto takes Pinocchio back home, repressing him for the murders. Pinocchio learns his Wood Mother and the Cricket tricked him into doing bad things, so he kills them both with a sledgehammer. James, Mia, and Dudley arrive at the basement just as Geppetto is about to destroy Pinocchio. When Pinocchio asks how he came to life, Geppetto reveals to have used Zach's corpse to build him, transferring his soul into the puppet. As James rescues Pinocchio, Geppetto shoots Dudley dead and knocks James unconscious before pursuing Mia to kill her while revealing to be an apprentice of the late Dr. Arthur Gallup, continuing with his experiments to resurrect dead children.[b] James stabs Geppetto before Pinocchio holds him at gunpoint.
Pinocchio shoots at Geppetto but misses and hits a panel that releases an aggressive wooden creature, who kills Geppetto as the entire house begins to burn. James, Mia, and Pinocchio manage to escape and promise to forget what happened. When Pinocchio reveals that he did not enjoy killing people, his nose begins to grow again. In a post-credits scene, the Cricket is revealed to have survived and recovers Geppetto's corpse to resurrect him.
Influenced by a sinister Cricket and created by Geppetto, Pinocchio launches a violent crusade to carve himself into a real boy like his brother James, one piece at a time.
