Another cinematic entry in what we can all now depressingly call "The Pooh-niverse", a cinematic selection of titles based on properties no longer covered by copyright laws, Pinocchio: Unstrung is, as you may have guess, all about everyone's favourite puppet who just wants to get rid of his strings and be a real boy. That means some life lessons, some misunderstandings, and a fair amount of blood and guts.
Richard Brake is Geppetto, and he somehow decides that his grandson, James (Cameron Bell), needs a new friend. One that will never die, and never leave him. Pinocchio (voiced by Jude Evan Lloyd). Pinocchio has a lot of questions, and is soon causing some accidental deaths . . . before being manipulated into causing some deliberate deaths. It doesn't help that he has a scheming cricket (voiced by Robert Englund) whispering in his ear.
Look, the performances here aren't great, as you might expect from another horror riff on Pinocchio (the little puppet has had a few murderous moments over the years). Brake is good fun in his role, and Englund's voice does a lot to make his character a highlight of the supporting cast, but Bell isn't very good, Jessica Balmer and Jack Art Gray are equally weak as his onscreen friends, and poor Lloyd can't do anything to improve upon the repetitive and inane dialogue that he's supposed to keep delivering during the gory set-pieces. Belinda Fenty isn't bad, playing a dentist who we know won't stay healthy and happy for long after "hurting" young James, and Toni Olabanji and Luca Marandola are decent as bullies, also not expected to stay happy and healthy for very long, but the gap between the good and the bad performances is pretty huge.
Writer-director Rhys Frake-Waterfield isn't the greatest wordsmith. He's also not the greatest director. Fair play to him though, this has some practical effects, puppetry, and stop-motion animation that show a level of care and skill you wouldn't expect from such low-budget schlock. Even the opening and closing credits have some genuinely impressive animation helping them along, which some may say is better than anything in the main body of the film. Despite the reason for films like this existing, Frake-Waterfield and co. have shown a notable improvement in their approach to the material since they started trying to make money from the various IPs they could exploit.
And as for the gore gags, well, they take things to another level. I was trying to enjoy this as it played out, and my mood was lifted by the aforementioned animation and effects, but when the first bit of serious bloodshed happened onscreen I was very pleasantly surprised. Obviously aiming to appeal to those who have had a good selection of extreme gore to entertain them nowadays, Pinocchio: Unstrung takes time to present a number of hilarious and ridiculous injuries and kills. Nothing here is ever close to being believable, but at least everyone involved just decided to shrug and throw around more fake blood, and fake organs, and fake severed body parts.
I doubt too many people will rush to see this if they aren't already familiar with the other films in this vein from Frake-Waterfield, but I'd tentatively recommend it to anyone who fancies something silly and gory. It's not actually a good film, but it's consistently amusing, sometimes even deliberately so.
5/10
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