Barging through the doors of the Poohniverse nose-first, Pinocchio has officially come to the company of Winnie the Pooh, Bambi and Peter Pan with Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s “Pinocchio Unstrung.” The latest addition to the ever-growing roster of twisted takes on childhood icons, which started with 2023’s “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,” sees Carlo Collodi’s classic puppet taking his dreams of being a boy a step too far…

The fifth entry on the expanding Poohniverse, also known as the Twisted Childhood Universe, “Pinocchio Unstrung” first finds young boy James grieving the loss of a dear childhood friend. Seeing his grandson suffer, Geppetto (Richard Brake) gifts him a new companion, the titular puppet. Soon, Pinocchio – under the influence of a sinister Cricket (Robert Englund) — goes on a killing rampage to free James from everyone evil around him, and becoming a real boy in the process — one piece at a time. 

Speaking with Variety following two successful screenings of the film at the Raindance Film Festival, Frake-Waterfield says his Jagged Edge Productions banner now has a wide roster of possible IPs to adapt, which means they need to carefully consider who to welcome into this intricate, gory world. “Pinocchio tonally matched my style because there were two routes you could take: a creepy doll like ‘Anabelle’ or more of a campy, crafty and fun route, which is where I decided to go. I’m naturally that kind of director who likes to make things feel fun and kooky. It’s not a film intended to be taken dead seriously.” 

“We had just made a VFX-heavy film with ‘Bambi,’ which we needed to do because it was a giant deer, so I thought I’d challenge myself and have a puppet as the lead,” he adds. “He was easier to work with than some actors [laughs]. I could control every arm movement, the eyes, everything. It was a load of fun.”

Pinocchio has been a very popular IP in recent years, with two adaptations coming out in 2022, a Disney project helmed by Robert Zemeckis and a Netflix one, by Guillermo del Toro. Frake-Waterfield believes his take on the story is closer to that of the Mexican auteur, mostly because of his interest in practical effects. 

“I wanted it to feel crafty,” he says. “It was an important direction to take with this and I hope it gives a kooky, crafty feel. I think that is almost impossible to replicate if you go down a VFX or CGI route because some of those janky movements with Pinocchio are what gives the film some heart. What del Toro did with the stop motion is what I think is the right direction, because the whole story of Pinocchio is about things being handcrafted.”

With that in mind, Frake-Waterfield enlisted the Emmy-winning special effects artist Todd Masters (“Child’s Play,” “Dune: Part Two”) to design the puppet. “Pinocchio is the lead. He’s your monster slash your hero, so his design is essential for the film to be good and Todd is one of the very best.” 

The director was also adamant in bringing a fresh concept to the classic story of the puppet who dreams of becoming a boy. “Unstrung” doesn’t dwell much on Pinocchio’s back story, but it introduces a new key character in the shape of a mother tree, and foregoes the old “lying is bad” narrative in favor of seeing the puppet lean into the gory. While there are familiar elements, no other adaptation has portrayed the doll quite like this: ripping teeth and pulling skin while blood drips through the deep crevasses of wood. 

This combination of clever practical effects and a refreshing new backstory has sent “Unstrung” right into the open arms of loving audiences, with the film getting some of the best reviews in the franchise. It is quite a step from the first “Blood and Honey” instalment, which sent the internet on a frenzied hatred campaign that ended up catapulting the film to a theatrical release that earned it over 50 times its meagre budget. 

“I am very thick-skinned, so it really didn’t matter to me,” Frake-Waterfield says of the online hate for the first film. “I just ignored it because anyone who starts out in any career wouldn’t be at their full potential at the start. That’s the same thing with us when we started filmmaking. The important thing is to keep developing, keep getting better. I think that’s why ‘Pinocchio’ is substantially improved compared to the first ‘Blood and Honey’ and why everyone seems to see it as the best one we have made so far.”

The improvement in quality — and a budget bump — meant Frake-Waterfield and the Jagged Edge Productions team could bring in bigger guns for “Unstrung.” Legendary “Nightmare on Elm Street” actor Robert Englund voices the Cricket, while famed Rob Zombie collaborator Richard Break plays Geppetto. 

“Robert is getting older now, so it made sense to me to give him a character he could do voice work for because he doesn’t need to fly all the way to the U.K., do any aggressive stunts, or be involved in any physically taxing scenes,” says the director of the man who voiced the horrifying Freddy Krueger. “He could do it from afar but we still gained a lot from his performance and his ability to portray this character. I obviously didn’t animate Cricket until we had Robert’s voice, so his performance has developed the mannerisms of the character.”

With “Unstrung” now in the world, Frake-Waterfield can fully concentrate on arguably his biggest project so far: “Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.” The massive crossover film will reunite all the characters from the Twisted Childhood Universe in an “Avengers”-like fashion. “We have now built up each of our Avengers in a sense, with Pinocchio’s backstory feeding into it too,” he says. “It’s one of the scripts I am working on and we are hoping to film either later this year or early next year.”

“It’s going to be a load of fun,” he adds. “You can have an idea of it by looking at the tone of the other films I directed. It’ll be kooky, crazy and fun. I’m hoping we’ll be the first people to ever have a film like this in the horror world.” 

“Pinocchio Unstrung” comes out in the U.K. on July 24, courtesy of Altitude Film. The film lands in North American theaters the same day, via Viva Pictures.