Pinocchio's Revenge (1996)

Tagline: Evil comes with strings attached.

Curiosity: Look at the title, man!

Plot: Unrelentingly awful attorney/mother Jennifer Garrick (Rosalind Garrick, Seaquest DSV) is trying to spare her client Vincent Gotto (Lewis Van Bergen) from the death penalty and fails pretty hard at it. Her defense rests on the argument that Gotto totally didn’t commit all those murders, even though he, uh, confessed to them and there’s evidence against him and the killing spree ended after he was arrested. After Gotto gets the electric chair, Jennifer takes evidence from his case home. Among the objects in the crime file is a wooden Pinocchio marionette.

MEANWHILE…

Jennifer’s daughter Zoe (Brittany Smith) is a crazy-crazy who bites peoples’ ears off in schoolyard fights. When she sees Pinocchio at her birthday party, she assumes she gets to keep them because she is an entitled lil jerk. For serious. Chick is a hair away from straight up murderizing the town.

PINOCCHIO IS THAT HAIR THAT DOES THAT THING.

Thoughts: Holy slow pacing. Pinocchio’s Revenge is kind of a misnomer, since Pinocchio never really claims revenge on anyone. Sure, he finally starts killin’… like an hour into the film’s 96-minute running time. And this movie isn’t slow in, say, a House of the Devil way. Revenge never bothers with flavor or good characters or humor. Rather, it runs out the clock as much as it can. Here’s Jennifer having sex with her boyfriend while Zoe listens. Here’s Jennifer having another inane argument about Gotto’s innocence. Here 76 different angles of Pinocchio’s frumpy face.

All of this is a shame, since buried deep, deep within this shit is a funny movie. Pinocchio purposefully sounds like the Disney version, which is funny. Even better is a sequence where Zoe tries to kill a student she hates. This other girl is joyfully riding her bike into a moving bus (suicide wish?) when *bam!* Zoe sticks a rake in her spokes and she goes right under the bus wheels.

Sadly, the film lacks the cajones needed to actually kill off any kid characters, which keeps the body count awfully low (Two. Three if you count Gotto getting executed). Same goes for my satisfaction. What a drag.

Reflection: Zoe was probably going to kill somebody before she got a murder doll.

ALSO you'll notice that in the above trailer, Pinocchio's voice has been changed. Was that an attempt to dodge Disney's wrath?