Horror movie Pinocchio Unstrung, killer puppet with Richard Brake and Evan Lloyd

Richard Brake and Evan Lloyd, the movie’s plot

Pinocchio Unstrung is the horror movie coming out. The plot is a horror adaptation of the character of Pinocchio, based on the book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Geppetto (Richard Brake) introduces his nephew, James (Cameron Bell) to a magical doll called Pinocchio, with whom he establishes a friendship. However, unaware of Pinocchio’s naive nature, James introduces him to the world, pushing the doll to embark on a crusade to eliminate everything that is bad.

Pinocchio is a vengeful and violent creature, animated by a dark force that escapes his creator’s control: when a group of people finds themselves trapped in an isolated place, the puppet becomes hunter.

“It’s always hard to lose the person you love. I’m sorry you had to live through all this” says Geppetto to James in the released trailer. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. I thought you needed a friend, it could be a good idea for both of you” says Geppetto. Then Pinocchio begins to commit murders.

Pinocchio Unstrung, the movie’s cast

In the cast are Evan Lloyd, already seen in the tv series The Witcher and in the movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter; Richard Brake, recently appeared in Mandy and in episodes of Foundation.

Also present is Robert Englund, performer in episodes of Stranger Things and in the movie The Requin. The direction is by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who has already directed Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, Bambi: The Reckoning.

Pinocchio Unstrung, the movie’s filming and release

The movie is produced by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Jeffrey. The team is the same as Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, which uses characters whose rights have expired to revisit them in horror style. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey grossed 5.2 million dollars against a budget of approximately 100,000 dollars. Among the upcoming movies in production there will be Peter Pan, and the sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh.

In total, the live-action movies about Pinocchio have been nine while the animated ones ten: from 1999 is The Magical World - The New Adventures of Pinocchio, from 2000 Geppetto, from 2002 Pinocchio by Roberto Benigni, from 2019 Pinocchio by Matteo Garrone and from 2022 Pinocchio by Robert Zemeckis. Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro won the Oscar as best animated movie.

The filming of Pinocchio: Unstrung took place in November and December 2024, and the character of Pinocchio was a completely manual animatronic because Frake-Waterfield really wanted it to seem real. The movie comes out in American theaters on May 7, 2026.