Pinocchio: Unstrung deaths: who dies, who survives, and whether Geppetto is really dead
The Blood and Honey team took a puppet whose nose grows when he lies and gave him a body count. Turns out the nose is the most useful weapon in the film.
Pinocchio: Unstrung is the fifth film in the Twisted Childhood Universe, the shared horror world that started with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Rhys Frake-Waterfield wrote and directed it for Jagged Edge Productions, Richard Brake plays Geppetto, and Robert Englund voices a Talking Cricket nobody should take advice from. It opened in UK and US theaters on July 24, 2026, and has been on digital since September 7, per Dread Central.
The MPA rated it R for "strong bloody horror violence and gore," which undersells it. The puppet works his way through a hospital, a dentist's office and a good chunk of a London prep school, and the film saves its most important scene for after the credits.
The setup
After his parents die in a car crash, 14-year-old James (Cameron Bell) moves in with his grandfather Geppetto, who builds him a friend: Pinocchio, an animatronic puppet voiced by Jude-Evan Lloyd. Pinocchio wants to become a real boy. The Cricket and the Wood Mother (voiced by Emma Tate) convince him the way to get there is to collect real-boy parts from people who hurt James, per Wikipedia's plot summary.
Who Pinocchio kills
The kills, in order, per What's After the Movie's breakdown:
- James's teacher: Dies on a school gym treadmill after Pinocchio sets off a chain reaction.
- The drunk driver: The man who caused the crash that killed James's parents. Pinocchio finds him in the hospital and takes his organs.
- The school dentist: Pinocchio and the Cricket take her teeth.
- Georgia (Mya Brown): Pinocchio breaks her jaw with an axe, and the Cricket finishes her off with electricity.
- Amanda (Karolina Ugrenyuk): Killed in her boyfriend Trey's house.
- Trey (Toni Olabanji): Pinocchio impales his skull with his own growing nose.
One bully is left in limbo. Logan loses his tongue and his eyes, but the film never confirms whether he dies.
Collodi gave Pinocchio a nose that grows when he lies. Jagged Edge noticed it's also pointy.
Who dies in the finale
The last act moves the danger from the puppet to the puppet maker. James, his friend Mia (Jessica Balmer) and Dudley (Jack Art Gray) find Geppetto's earlier, failed puppets, and the truth comes out: Geppetto built Pinocchio from the corpse of Zach, James's friend who died of cancer, and he's been experimenting on dead children ever since.
From there, it goes fast:
- Dudley: Geppetto shoots him.
- The Wood Mother and the Cricket: Once Pinocchio realizes they've been manipulating him, he takes a sledgehammer to both.
- Geppetto: James stabs him, and then one of Geppetto's own booby-trapped wooden creatures kills him while the house burns.
James, Mia and Pinocchio make it out. They agree to forget what happened, Pinocchio says he never enjoyed the killing, and his nose starts to grow.
Don't miss: Crystal Lake easter eggs: 13 Friday the 13th references — how many did you catch?
Is Geppetto really dead?
Not for long, probably. The post-credits scene reveals that the Cricket survived the sledgehammer. He recovers Geppetto's body and starts trying to bring him back, and JustWatch's ending explainer says he connects the corpse to the tree. A man who spent the movie turning dead kids into puppets may be about to get the same treatment.
The cameos point to where that goes. Scott Chambers turns up as Dr. Christopher Robin, the hospital doctor who treats James, and Peter DeSouza-Feighoney is back as Michael Darling from Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare.
All of it is building toward Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, the crossover that has Pinocchio on its roster alongside Pooh, Bambi and Peter Pan. Chambers once hoped it would land by Halloween 2025. It hasn't yet.
"The wooden puppet becomes a psychotic Groot in this mostly laughless comedy-slasher."
— Phil de Semlyen, Time Out
Not every critic was that cold: the film sits at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes from 25 reviews. It made $818,974 worldwide before heading to digital. Geppetto is dead, the Cricket was too for about ten minutes, and in the Twisted Childhood Universe neither condition looks permanent.
Previously we wrote: Clayface end credits: the Batman rumor, the Wayne Enterprises nod, and whether to stay