Pinocchi-O-Rama #10: Pinocchio’s Revenge AKA Bad Pinocchio (1996)

This is one i KNEW would have to be featured on Pinocchiorama from the very start, because it’s both peculiar but also really easy to see why it keeps slipping back into obscurity regardless.

After all, you gotta love the more common name this movie (also known as Bad Pinocchio) goes by, Pinocchio’s Revenge, which really tells you the kind of shit you’re about to see.

It’s that kind of stupid title that already confuses you, as in, who the hell could be Pinocchio be taking revengeance on? The Cat and Fox either get arrested, punished or get actually miserable endings regardless of what version or adaption of the story, Lampwick dies of being worked to death as a donkey, so to whom he has to break the rules of nature?

I jest, but it’s telling that maybe this wasn’t the greatest idea even when just hearing the title of the movie out of context already sounds perplexing, and, while there are horrific scenes in the original story of Pinocchio that could befit of an actual horror angle or direction… the idea of making a psychological horror movie about Pinocchio is both slightly ambitious as it’s kinda random and kinda dumb, as much i have a soft spot for reinventing children literature as horror.

Also, it’s conceptually not quite the cheap, easy target it might sound, i gotta admit.

Pinocchio-meter:

The premise of Pinocchio’s Revenge is not exactly what one would expect… actually, it is, since the scriptwriter opted to follow in the wake of Child’s Play, thought it evokes more of a Puppet Master vibes due to his budget and feel, but yeah, it’s pretty much another take on the Child’s Play blueprint, with a murderer executed on an electric chair and his soul transferring into a doll. or is it?

It does try to play the “psychological horror thriller” card on the “slasher doll” formula, with the plot following Jennifer, a defense lawyer that brings home a wooden puppet found buried alongside the body of a boy, supposedly killer by his own father, as in her client, Vincent Gotto, in hope of finding anything to prove his innocence.

Her 8 yo daughter Zoe mistakens the doll for a birthday gift and becomes attached to it, but things spiral out of control as accidents start happening, with her daughter involved and blaming it on Pinocchio, making even wonder if the puppet it’s actually alive after all…. or it’s just the daughter hallucinating Pinocchio as an evil “Puppet Master” cast reject.

In a way it’s an interesting film, since it sticks closer to Don Mancini’s original script for Child’s Play…. and it kinda proves they were better off opting for a rewrite, even if hindsight it’s not quite 20/20, because regardless of Chucky’s success, this movie had such obvious issues of its own.

Real Boy Ratio:

Also it matters little how the Pinocchio stuff being vestigial at best here, to be generous.

The main issue with Pinocchio’s Revenge is not the psychological slasher angle, it’s that ultimately the script can’t either keep you guessing what the final twist is gonna be, nor it delivers the killer doll carnage you would be led to believe by the cover or description, yet remains vague in a fairly desperate attempt to get one over the audience.

It tries to compromise, maybe in order to give you some answers, but the result it’s still played so utterly vague that it might as well not answer any question it raises… and ultimately it still doesn’t answer most of them anyway, like if Jennifer’s client was actually the serial killer he himself said and not protecting someone else. Who needs closure for subplots, anyway?

At least it does manage to answer the main question, but even that really isn’t satisfying, it’s just cheap and dull, just wasting time flip-flopping between one of two scenarios, with the tact and insight on mental illness of Crazy Fat Ethel II, because yeah, in the end i find it hard to even suspect the doll might actually be alive and killing people, it’s pretty obvious than even with the vaguery employed, it’s the kid being a crazed sociopath with a split personality.

Not that the movie will ever admit to this, too busy being vague for its own sake even after its feels pointless, this thing won’t pad itself to feature lenght after all.

It doesn’t help that the film, while a direct-to-video release, doesn’t really look much better than any crime procedural TVshow of the era, and the way it’s edited does reinforce this feeling of “someone slipped a cheap psychological slasher in this feature lenght Law & Order episode”, one involving either one of the stupidest or unluckiest defense lawyers i’ve ever seen.

There are also some really obvious inconsistency in terms of effects, with Pinocchio movings his lips to talk in some scenes, throwing his voice in others, it’s not an error, it’s magic, puppet magic i swear.

Now instead look at some random ass nudity, which feels unnecessary, and it’s hilarious because we go from some really chaste “american TV sex scenes” to full frontal nudity with an actress that speaks with a foreign accent and clearly didn’t have a “no nudity” clause in her contract, all for a single scene, like why even bother in a movie that’s not even attempting to be sleazy?

Overall Evalution

Stupid title aside, Pinocchio’s Revenge, it’s not awful, per sé, and even ignoring the cheap production values (still, we’ve seen far worse for in terms of direct-to-video or TV movies), it’s just kind of okay-ish, but it’s wishy-washy attitude it’s really its undoing, as people expecting a killer doll movie will be bored by the story filled with basic TV quality courtroom/police drama, bad effect, barely any blood and very low body count.

As a psychological horror thriller, there’s zero atmosphere, dull characters and you never feel keen to second guess what’s actually happening, you never feel compelled to consider that the doll may be alive, because as to suggest anything else than the kid being crazy and having a multiple personality disorder thing and subsconsciously blaming any bad deed or murder attempt at Pinocchio… it’s just absurd, no matter how much the director plays it vague, despite offering a fairly obvious read, this thing gotta reach 90 minutes somehow.

On a positive note, acting is quite decent (child acting not so much), though i feel they spent all the little budget they had on the fairly creepy Pinocchio puppet, as there’s really little in terms of effects or blood, both bad anyway, or much in terms of Pinocchio references, aside some dropped wholesale at random in a scene (like they forgot to earlier) the Pinocchio name it’s just there because it’s public domain and it will help market the movie.

It’s the kind of movie that will definitely annoy some, since it can’t really decide proper if to offer a psychological horror alternative to Child’s Play or just emulate it outright, doesn’t properly work either way. Heck, even the ending it’s undecisive to a fault as well, that it ends up feeling like it was made more to fill up a time slot on a TV network more than anything else, even though something a bit better could have been made out of the ideas, but the final result it’s kind of a dud.

A sub-par, kinda sluggish dud.

Shame because the director is Kevin S. Tenney, better known for the cult movie Night Of The Demons, he knows how to make fun movies, this just isn’t one of them.

And YES, ultimately the Bohemian Rhapsody Stand attack sequence in Stone Ocean it’s a better horror adaptation of Pinocchio.