Guillermo Del Toro is the mind behind the latest reimagining of Pinocchio (Picture: Getty Images)

Parents beware – there’s a spirit of rebellion storming our screens this Christmas. 

Hot on the heels of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is another anti-authoritarian family blockbuster so stirring it could even cause Santa to tear up his Naughty vs. Nice lists.

‘I wanted to make a Pinocchio that went the other way – in which we celebrated disobedience,’ declares writer/director/producer Guillermo Del Toro, almost bouncing with enthusiasm out of a squashy armchair in his London hotel suite. 

‘We exist in a time in which lies and truth and what separates them is in question every day, in every arena. We have to stand up and think for ourselves and defend our right to be human and fallible. Disobedience is an urgent virtue right now.’

Resembling a jovial mix of Hobbit and wizard, the Oscar-winning Shape Of Water auteur has spent ‘as long as I can remember’ trying to re-fashion his own Pinocchio, a character he has a ‘deep personal connection’ with.

‘When I was a kid and I watched Disney’s Pinocchio and then later I read the original 19th-century tale by Collodi, the scary, outsized and sort of suffocating forces that tried to shape that little puppet felt very emotionally close to me as a kid,’ he explains. 

The story of Pinocchio has been relocated to 1930s facist Italy (Picture: Getty Images for BFI)

Raised in a strict Catholic family in Guadalajara, Mexico, he found ‘the looming spectre of obedience to be incredibly scary, because it offered you no choices and just told you what you need to be liked and I disliked that very much.’

Relocated to 1930s fascist Italy, Pinocchio, like Del Toro’s earlier films Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, explores the experience of innocence during a terrifyingly oppressive ideological moment in history. 

Do children to be frightened? I don’t think the word “need”, but in order to understand the world, our stories need to encompass the world. The world is what is so scary

It’s a film obsessed with death: Pinocchio is born from the grief Geppetto is decimated by after his beloved little son is killed in the war; Pinocchio almost burns to a crisp and the Cricket (voiced by Ewan McGregor) gets repeatedly squashed. Possibly not one for the little’uns? You might be thinking. And you’d be right.

‘I made it very clear when I was pitching this, I said “this is not a movie for kids!”’ laughs Del Toro. ‘But kids can watch it’ – he concedes. If they dare…

Realised in breathtaking stop-motion animation, this Pinocchio clearly springs from the same gothic imagination that brought you Nightmare Alley and Hellboy. Characters you definitely won’t remember from the Disney version include a giant Wood Sprite (voiced by Tilda Swinton) with pupil-less eyes and a forked snake tail, whose wings are covered with blinking eyes and some truly macabre Black Rabbits Of Death likely to give bunny-loving kiddies nightmares. 

What frightened you as a child? As a child, my monsters were very specific. There was a faun that lived behind the armoire. And there was a bunch of green fingers that came out of the rug

‘I actually don’t think it’s a dark movie,’ Del Toro protests. ‘I think the opposite – it’s incredibly sweet and incredibly moving.’

That’s as maybe, but it’s no wonder it took him over 15 years to get this Pinocchio green-lit. It was eventually funded by Netflix, who agreed to let him do his thing. 

Pinocchio is available to watch on Netflix now (Picture: Netflix)

‘This is a movie that was created completely shielded from corporate interference,’ Del Toro says, proudly. ‘No test screenings, none of that.’ He has insisted on total artistic control since the late 1990s – which has come at a cost. ‘I have done much fewer movies than I might have,’ he admits. 

‘I could have made 20, I have done 12. But it was a decision I made after I went through Mimic with the Weinsteins. I said “never again!”’.

These days, he says, aged nearly 60, his outlook has changed. It’s more holistic. ‘At this point in my life I only make the movies I need to, to survive spiritually,’ he says.

So, what’s next? Del Toro’s eyeing up another story that shaped his inner child. ‘With Pinocchio, it was the disproportionate forces trying to dominate him, with Frankenstein it was this sense of being thrown into the world and not given many tools to understand it. So, Pinocchio and the creature of Frankenstein are very close to each other and very close to me. And, you know – one down, one to go!’

Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 15 years to see it.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is out now in selected cinemas and on Netflix on Friday.

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The stop-motion musical explores innocence during an oppressive ideological moment in history.