Pinocchio's Revenge

Pinocchio's back...and he's pissed! Only Gepedo, with the aid of a repentant Good Fairy and his trusty .44 Magnum, can ever hope to put an end to his murderous, hellish rampage...

I wish, actually. A man murders his own son and tries to bury the body before he's caught. The body is found clutching an innocent looking doll. The doll then falls in the hands of lawyer Jennifer Garrick, who uses it to help mount a defense for the murdering father. When the case falls flat, Jennifer keeps the doll and it ends up in the hands of her alienated, young daughter Zoe...

Comments

This is one of those low budget, campy horror/thriller films you always see sitting neglected beside their better known and more mainstream cousins. You feel a pang of remorse for this underdog and consider renting it, at least for a laugh, but something-the goofy title, as in this case, the badly made and generally unappealing cover, or maybe some infamous words along the lines of "DINO DE LAURENTIIS"-makes you pause and move on to a shinier, more promising package.

In this case, I took the plunge and picked the underdog.

The first thing that goes against this movie is how it's approached. Even with a title like Pinocchio's Revenge, the material is played not only with very little imagination, but absolutely straight! While Child's Play, which this film clearly...um, tries to pay homage to, mostly succeeded in trying to get the audience to seriously take the concept of a dangerous killer doll, this movie has no such luck. Chucky is a doll with a killer's will and personality, and it shows. Pinocchio (we'll call him that for the title's sake, although he's never really named that in the film except through a vague connection via a story told to Zoe by Jennifer's boyfriend) is just a doll with a nasty streak. Pinocchio's voice is a high-pitched, childish voice that tries so hard to come across as creepy but is actually just rather surreal. Because of this, the scenes where Pinocchio frequently try to convince Zoe to help him kill her loved ones fall flat at best.

There is, though, one small advantage Pinocchio's Revenge has over the other killer doll movie. While Child's Play was in many way a straight-foward slasher movie, Pinocchio's Revenge does try to create some ambiguity that comes to an interesting but confusing (or is it confused?) ending. Until you get there you have a movie with acting that's sometimes competent and sometimes just plain awful. You'll meet characters taken straight out of the Hollywood Movie Characters Cookie-Cutter: the Feisty But Embittered Single Mother-Successful Working Woman, the Clueless Yet Well-Meaning Boyfriend, and the Bratty Alienated Child. You'll laugh and wonder at the bizarre plot (what the hell is Jennifer thinking anyway, letting her daughter play with murder evidence that was almost buried with the body of a dead child? No wonder Zoe's so screwed up!), an action scene that "borrows" existensively from not only Child's Play, but also from the famous Zuni fetish doll segment in Trilogy of Terror, and the Ed Wood-esque directing sensibilities (it becomes painfully obvious early on that most of the house scenes were shot at night while all other scenes were shot during the daytime). On these merits, I would recommend this movie to those looking for a couple of laughs and a few drinks with other B-meisters, but this film is made with such little enthusiasm that it's likely to inspire more yawns than chuckles.


Choice Quotes:

To be honest, I accidently threw away the notes for this part. But there wasn't really anything there to begin with.

Director and writer Kevin Tenney is also responsible for the first two installments of the never-ending Witchboard series. Rosalind Allen (Jennifer) has had bit parts in various shows, from "L.A Law" to "Jake and the Fat Man" to "Seinfield" to "Star Trek: The Next Generation." B-meisters will also recognize her as Holly Lambert in Ticks and in a role in Children of the Corn II.

Ron Canada (Barry) had a role in the terrible TV adaption of "Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Larry Cedar (the District Attorney), had a speaking role in "Pinky and the Brain."