Pinocchio and The Emperor of the Night.

[CyrusGrissom]

Anyone remembers this one? it's a very cool and very dark 1987 animated fantasy that is a continuation on the original fairy tale done by Filmation (the guys who made "He-Man", "Fat Albert" and "She-Ra) and New World Pictures (the studios that brought you "Hellraiser" and "House"). It's about a mysterious carnival that just came to town, Pinocchio who is human now must do an important task for his dad as he must return a jewelery box to the mayor, but unfortunately makes a fool of himself by trading it with a scandlous Raccoon and his monkey companion for a worthless fake ruby. Gheppeto is upset thus Pinocchio decides to run away from home to join the carnival for the evil puppeteer Puppetino turns him into a puppet, luckily he escapes and has the two scoundrels to help him try to get the box back by pursuing the carnival and end up in the Las Vegas-esque hellish realm of the evil Emperor of the Night.

Very entertaining and well animated flick with great voice acting by James Earl Jones, Scott Grimes (the kid from "Critters 1 & 2" and "American Dad"), Ed Asner and Don Knotts and spectacular visuals with some scary moments like the absolutely horrifying sequence where Pinocchio is magically being tortured and changes into a puppet again and that weird hallucination Pinocchio starts when he drinks some stuff seeing the kids turn into laughing melting maniacs. I remembered seeing this movie at a theater back in christmas 1987 when i was 5 living in St.Louis, it scared the crap out of me! but doesn't scare me anymore, i think this is a nice dark and fun animated movie that probably ranks up there with "Fire & Ice" and "Rock & Rule" as one of those forgotten 80's animated gems that have small cult followings and it's also up there with "The Dark Crystal" and "Return to Oz" for freakiness in a family movie.

Recommended if you like animation.

 

[crazed gonzo fa]

Speaking of Fire and Ice, is there anything bad in that movie?