Classic Reel: 'Pinocchio's Revenge'

 

Cast: Rosalind Allen, Brittany Alyse Smith, Lewis Van Bergen, Aaron Lustig and Candace McKenzie.

Year of Release: 1996

Plot:  A lawyer's daughter discovers a mysterious puppet, leading to unsettling events and a chilling change in her behaviour.

Director: Kevin S. Tenney

This half-forgotten direct-to-video thriller is basically a head-scratcher. It came out in 1996, and the only thing the titular 'character' here has in common with Carlo Collodi's beloved character is just the name! Stylistically, the film leans into a gloomy, almost claustrophobic atmosphere, with shadowy sets that fit right into the 90s killer doll craze. While it does not have the slick polish of bigger-budget entries like  Child's Play (1988),  its strange tone and ambiguous ending gave it a distinct, if uneven, place in the subgenre.

Jennifer Garrick (Rosalind Allen) gets hold of a wooden puppet (or is it a doll?) buried with a dead boy, whose father is executed for his murder. Still, Jennifer, the accused man’s lawyer, felt the man was hiding something important that could’ve cleared him. Her emotionally fragile daughter, Zoe, mistakes it for a present for her and takes it for herself, talking to it like she talks to her dolls. Most little girls do, anyway.

But then things start happening to people who upset Zoe.  Her bully is pushed in front of a bus, her mother’s boyfriend is injured and then later killed. The child says Pinocchio did it, but the viewers don’t see him do it. We see scenes of her talking to Pinocchio and he answering back, but a videotape at her therapist’s office of her doing so with no one else around glaringly shows the child is talking to herself!

Zoe’s babysitter ended up beaten to death with a poker; and again, we don’t see who is doing it.

The climactic fight in the house: Jennifer sees Pinocchio with his strings cut and standing in the room... she runs for her life, he catches up with his knife in hand, and they struggle, and at the last minute she body slams him, and he crashes onto a glass table. But hold on, it’s not Pinocchio! It's... I'll stop right there. 

The culprit is placed in psychiatric care and doesn’t look or speak to anyone. The film ends with Jennifer being the only one believing the culprit is innocent of attacking her that night or responsible for the killings.

So... what really happened?  

Was the doll possessed? The executed child killer...  if it was truly the doll who killed his son, he obviously kept quiet about it because, of course, no one would believe it. But then,  why did he  bury the doll with the boy in the first place if it was responsible? Was he possessed by the doll or simply insane?

Who pushed the bully, who killed David and Sophie; who did Jennifer really fight with that night,  Pinocchio or the revealed culprit? Did the killer have hidden mental problems, or did the doll drive the person insane, like it probably drove the executed child killer insane?

AND WHAT happened to the wooden doll in the end?

The movie was just left like that, with the viewers trying to decide who the real culprit was. 

Trivia: 

This film was released the same year as The Adventures of Pinocchio.  Both films are underrated. 

Pinocchio's Revenge mirrors Don Mancini's original storyline  for Child's Play (1988)