Pinocchio: Unstrung, a low-budget horror film in which a wooden puppet carves a violent path to become a real boy, has grossed about $819,000 worldwide as of late August, according to Wikipedia citing The Numbers and Box Office Mojo.
That is a tiny number next to the year's other horror releases, and yet the film keeps rising on our tracker: its TMDb popularity score went from 128.4 on October 24 to 163.8 on October 28, which puts it 277th on our hype ranking. We cannot say what is driving that.
The Film
- Director and writer: Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who produced with Scott Chambers.
- Cast: Richard Brake as Geppetto, Robert Englund as the voice of the Talking Cricket, Cameron Bell as James and Jessica Balmer as Mia, with Jude-Evan Lloyd voicing Pinocchio. Scott Chambers and Peter DeSouza-Feighoney reprise roles from earlier films in the same series.
- Premise: a boy named James befriends a wooden puppet made by his grandfather, and the puppet's naïveté leads it into a violent campaign against perceived wrongs.
- Length and rating: 82 minutes, rated 18 by the BBFC.
- Release: world premiere at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival on April 11, then theaters in the U.K. and North America on July 24. Wikipedia lists the distributor inconsistently, so we do not name one.
- Budget: not stated beyond "low."
Box Office and Reviews
- Box office: $625,726 in the U.S. and Canada and $193,248 elsewhere, $818,974 in total, per Wikipedia (retrieved August 29).
- Rotten Tomatoes: 76% from 25 critic reviews, an average of 5.8 out of 10 (August 1).
- Metacritic: 50 from only 4 critics, "mixed or average" (July 28).
Wikipedia calls it the first film in its series to receive generally positive reviews from critics, which sits awkwardly beside a Metacritic score of 50 built from four reviews. The two readings are consistent if you take the 76% as the broader picture and the small Metacritic sample as noise. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus calls it a gleefully gruesome, darkly funny horror romp.
We did not find a CinemaScore or a digital or streaming date for it.
Editorial Take: The most useful way to read these numbers is as a small film with a modest, clear audience, not as a hit or a flop. Under a million dollars at the box office means almost nobody saw it in a theater, and 76% from 25 critics means the ones who watched mostly enjoyed it. Whatever is bringing new attention now, the review numbers say it is a reasonable choice for a Halloween-week horror night, if you like your children's classics with blood. For a bigger picture of what cheap horror earns this year, see our analysis of 2026's horror box office.
Track Pinocchio: Unstrung on Incoming →
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is in Pinocchio: Unstrung? Richard Brake as Geppetto, Robert Englund as the voice of the Talking Cricket, Cameron Bell and Jessica Balmer, directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield.
What are the reviews? 76% on Rotten Tomatoes from 25 reviews and 50 on Metacritic from 4 critics, as of late July and early August.
How long is it? 82 minutes.
How much did it make? About $819,000 worldwide as of late August, per Wikipedia.
Where can I watch it? We did not find a streaming or digital date. Check your usual store or streaming service.
Is it for children? No. The BBFC rating is 18.
Box office, review and release details come from the sources linked above and can change. Popularity figures are Incoming's snapshots of TMDb's score on October 24 and October 28, 2026. Tracking what arrives next across movies, TV, games, music and books at incoming.to.