I"ve not seen it, actually. I did see Creep Show and he is fun in that.
I liked in the newer version of IT when he played the pawn shop owner who tells author William Denbrough that he doesn’t know how to write the ending of a book.
Black Bag.
A 2025 American spy thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. It stars Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan.
I watched it as a metaphor for the human capacity to deceive and be deceived.
Alert and elegant. The ending is correct on several levels but not creative enough to turn the movie into a blockbuster.
I watched Trucks a few months ago. Without the camp or R-rated violence, it’s pretty weak sauce compared to the 1987 film. It hangs everything on a fantastic premise that was no longer novel by the 1990s.
Pinocchio Unstrung 2026
Peacock
My first thought is todays writers must be desperate for horror material. Do they really need to turn Pinocchio into Chucky? I know Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey came out in 2023. I haven’t seen it yet.
Back to Pinocchio. Most people know he wants to be a real boy. That requires human skin and organs in this films reality.
You can guess how our puppet acquires the parts needed.
There is a market for these slasher children’s stories. Pinocchio is part of The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU).
Rotten Tomatoes gives Pinocchio Unstrung 77% and 68% ratings.
I enjoyed the film. The puppetry is well done. I’m impressed that Pinocchio is a fully practical animatronic.
I just saw The Ramayana in the theater. Surprise, it’s an Indian film and has just come out. There are three ways to see it. Dubbed, subtitled, and 3D I saw the subtitled version, as I prefer that to dubbing the English in. This is a long film, three hours or so, and it says “Part One”
The Adventures of Pinocchio is out of copyright, so it’s legal to us the character of Pinocchio for free, including for making him the villain in a horror movie. Similarly, Winnie the Pooh can be used as the villain in a horror movie. Copyrights run out 95 years after a book or movie or television show or play or song or other artistic items were created.
The Pinocchio movie came out in 1940. Apparently Disney doesn’t have exclusive rights to the character.
Carlo Collodi’s novel was published in1883.
The new Pinocchio horror movie is extremely bloody and graphic. It’s too much for me regardless of the character that’s used.
I won’t watch the Winnie the Pooh slasher films. That’s a personal choice. I prefer suspense based horror.
YMMV
I’ve seen two of them. They were pathetic.
I meant to say that the novel is out of copyright, so it’s legal to use the character of Pinocchio for free.
And of course “The Mouse Trap” (2024) was a deliberate f-u to commemorate the expiration of the copyright on the (original version of) Mickey Mouse.
I don’t buy that was the intention. I think “The Mouse Trap” was simply meant to exploit the Disney property and make money.
We haven’t seen much of flood of open-source Mickey since then though.
I think anyone capable of competently making open-source Mickey Mouse films would much rather use original or licensed content so they could make addition films or television shows.
Though, looking at Wikipedia, there have been other such films.
And the prominence of slasher/horror films on that list leads me to suspect that f-u is a strong factor in their production.
Sometimes called The Poohniverse (after WtP: B&H)
I watched Nocturnal Animals (2016; 7.4 imdb) on Netflix just now, several years after Chefguy.
The movie – which is a “realistic” horror story – is a stark psychological thriller, with lots of soul-searching and lots of symbolism. This is NOT my genre, and I definitely do NOT recommend the film for anyone looking for a good time. BUT the sheer starkness and multi-level symbolism is impressive. I can’t think of another film at all like it.
Tom Ford was the renowned Creative Director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, winner of 30+ major awards – even I had heard of him. Tom Ford seems like it might be a common name so I first assumed that the Tom Ford who wrote, produced and directed Nocturnal Animals was a different guy. Nope, same polymath, whose degree is in architecture. A random excerpt from his Wikipedia bio:
I also found the ending (or perhaps the entire movie!) confusing but Google’s AI was happy to explain it to me. Edward, who never appears to Susan except in flashbacks, is taking revenge on Susan for abandoning him. His no-show for dinner is the final tit-for-tat of that revenge.
Super Troopers 3 (Hulu and Disney+)
I thought the first one was very funny, but I don’t think I saw the second one. I think fans of the first Super Troopers or Broken Lizard fans in general should see this movie right meow, but I don’t know if it would appeal to non-fans. It is funny and there are some goofy shenanigans but it feels similar to what they’ve done before. Like the first, the characters goof around a lot until the denouement when the movie says “Oh wait, we have to stop the drug smugglers.”
I rewatched Godzilla Minus One tonight in to remind me of everything before i see Minus Zero in the theater tomorrow. My first review of it doesn’t change:
Primetime
Not recommended.
This was so stupid. I don’t blame Chris Hansen for being mad. This whole thing feels like a parody of a bad bio film.
I remember To Catch A Predator. This movie doesn’t get much into the making of it.
It just portrays Hansen as a Captain Ahab like weirdo.
What a stupid film.