Another Disney animated classic is becoming a horror movie in 2026, continuing a trend that’s been ongoing over the past few years, and expanding out an unlikely shared universe. With many of the characters and stories that Disney’s works are based on becoming public domain, it’s meant a new wave of releases featuring them, some of which have taken a very dark slant compared to the films that I and many others grew up with.
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At the forefront of this has been the Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU), also known as the Poohniverse. Following on from Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, its sequel, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, and Bambi: The Reckoning, this year brings us Pinocchio: Unstrung, a reimaging of the story of a wooden doll who wants to be a real boy. Watch the trailer below:
Putting a very fresh spin on the classic story, which was originally a novel written by Carlo Collodi and published in 1883, this sees Pinocchio doing anything necessary to become a real boy. In that case, it means killing people and taking different parts from them – in one gruesome scene, for example, he’s peeling the face off one of his victims.
There’s Even More To The Poohniverse After Pinocchio: Unstrung
Pinocchio: Unstrung looks every bit as violent as you might expect from the TCU. It’s even brought in a couple of genre stalwarts, with Richard Brake (Hannibal Rising, Halloween II, Mandy, Barbarian) taking on the role of Geppetto, while The Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Robert Englund turns The Cricket into a Freddy Krueger-esque conscience, egging the wooden doll on in his bloody, brutal massacre.
In a way, Pinocchio makes quite a bit of sense for the Poohniverse. It’s one of the darker Disney movies, and the original story was much darker than that. It’s been reinvented a couple of times recently, including a live-action Disney remake with Tom Hanks, and more notably, Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion version. While not a horror, that did lean more into the darkness of the novel, but Unstrung is taking that to a whole other level.
There are big plans for the universe beyond this, including its first major crossover event. Titled Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, the movie will feature characters from all the released movies so far, plus other well-known names such as the Mad Hatter and Mary Poppins (who, along with Peter Pan, are expected to serve as the villains of the piece). It’s once again being directed by franchise creator Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who also helms Pinocchio: Unstrung.
Plans are already in place for a third Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey movie, and several other horror reimaginings are in development as well. These include riffs on Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Mary Poppins. So, if there’s enough box office success (and the low budgets make that easier), the Twisted Childhood Universe, or Poohniverse, will continue ruining childhoods for several years yet.
Pinocchio: Unstrung will be released in 2026.
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Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme
