Published Jul 14, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT
Ryan O’Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided’s CubbiesCrib. Whether it’s taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what’s going on. Outside of entertainment, he’s a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor’s in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
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Fairytales are often much darker than the versions that many people first heard as children. The works of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Charles Perrault, among others, were originally more skewed towards adults or designed to warn kids of the dangers of the world through much more frightening means. Red Riding Hood, for instance, ended with the titular young girl being devoured by the Big Bad Wolf, while Hansel and Gretel’s notoriously grisly conclusion sees the kids escape after pushing the witch who intended to eat them into her own oven. Disney played a big role in sanitizing a lot of these tales and bringing them to wider audiences with Golden Age classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, among others.
Yet, the Mouse House’s adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio still manages to keep some of its original darkness and remains among its most frightening films. 1940’s Pinocchio follows the innocent boy out into the world, where he finds trouble around every corner, from the abusive puppeteer Stromboli to the fearsome Coachman, who sells disobedient boys into slave labor after they’re transformed into donkeys on Pleasure Island. It’s meant as a classic, if questionable, morality tale about the consequences of misbehaving and the dangers of the world, and remains among Disney’s most beloved updates despite its penchant to scare. However, another loose fairytale film is about to take the horror of the wooden boy to new heights as part of the Twisted Childhood Universe.
Pinocchio Unstrung is set to premiere next week on July 24, and it reimagines the charming marionette as a jagged wooden killer twisted by the outside world. Written and directed by Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey helmer Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the film revolves around an elite London prep school and a boy named James, the grandson of Geppetto. One day, the woodcarver introduces James to his titular magical creation, sparking a friendship between the kid and Pinocchio that quickly turns sinister. James introduces his living puppet pal to everything outside his home, but between his naïveté and the influence of a wicked Cricket, he’s pushed into a violent rampage in hopes of carving himself into a real boy like his “brother.”
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
Pinocchio Unstrung arrives on July 24. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the hottest upcoming titles across streaming, television, and theaters throughout the rest of the year.
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Rhys Frake-Waterfield