Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare is playing theaters Monday, January 13 through Wednesday, January 15.
What do Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Pan, and a pile of dead bodies have in common? Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s Twisted Childhood Universe, of course! What started with 2023’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and last year’s markedly improved sequel is now a full-fledged franchise. With Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2’s Scott Jeffrey ditches the role of Christopher Robin to write and direct a middle finger to a different Disney animated classic. In this storytime-gone-wrong telling of J.M. Barrie’s timeless tale, Peter’s a kiddie snatcher, the Lost Boys are lost forever, and Wendy’s a scream queen. Graphic violence replaces whimsical swashbuckling, but it’s a grave reinterpretation that loses the escapist essence of Peter Pan, becoming just another vulgar horror film in a sea of indistinguishable brutality.
It’s not difficult to see where Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare seeks inspiration. Martin Portlock’s portrayal of evil Peter Pan is caught somewhere between Joaquin Phoenix’s version of Joker and The Grabber from The Black Phone. His stringy hair and diamond-eyed clown makeup are eerie echoes of Arthur Fleck, while later shots where he’s driving around in his red flag of a van or wearing a rosy-cheeked jester’s mask reflect how The Grabber changes mood when he’s donning his mask. Portlock’s character murders children under the guise of whisking them to a “Neverland” where they’ll always be free, but unlike Barrie’s welcoming fantasy, this Peter’s belief in an adult-free refuge is fueled by narcotics and an imagined shadow that gives him the tunic-clad silhouette we typically associate with Pan. This isn’t the devil-may-care boy who won’t grow up that we’re used to, but while Portlock’s performance is unsettling, Peter doesn’t feel impressively fresh by today’s horror standards either.
Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare struggles to establish any identity it hasn’t cherry-picked from other books and movies. It owes an obvious debt to Stephen King’s It; Peter’s first criminal act sees him coaxing a nervous boy toward a basement hatch, just as Pennywise lures poor Georgie to the sewer drain. Peter’s hideaway is a standard-issue derelict drug den, and his Tinker Bell (Kit Green) is a brainwashed, stoned-numb accomplice who shoots up (sigh) “Pixie Dust.” There’s nothing imaginative to this reimagining of Barrie’s mythology – it follows a formulaic kidnapping-thriller blueprint – nor any magic in its admittedly impressively abundant nastiness.
Jeffrey’s approach to horror storytelling is straight as an arrow. After Peter snatches Michael Darling (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), Wendy (Megan Placito) must save her little brother, an inciting incident that leads to lopped off digits and the sight of the villain’s ghastly facial scar. But this isn’t Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, which leveled up by taking some cues from Art the Clown’s Terrifier rampages. And though Portlock is no David Howard Thornton, he’s still a terrifying presence, blending innocent immaturity with serial-killer outbursts. The actor does the whole hunt-and-stalk schtick, knifing targets big and small, but his performance is never better than when adult Peter manipulates characters with his boyish alter ego.
Peter’s immaturity – you might even call it “Peter Pan syndrome” – makes for an interesting horror-villain pathology: The character “saves” his victims from the trials of adulthood by sending them to Neverland via strangulation or mutilation. The problem is, that’s just run-of-the-mill psycho behavior by genre standards. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare leaves several possibilities for interpretation on the table, opting instead for a “grounded and gritty” take that ditches the more fantabulous edges of Barrie’s world. Tick-Tock the Croc is just some background image on a television screen in Michael’s prison bedroom, while Neverland is represented by crayon drawings hung around Peter’s crumby lair. There’s an element of delusion to Peter’s Neverland ramblings that Jeffrey neither indulges nor refutes, which is a detriment to an already paint-by-numbers approach.
That’s not to say the filmmaker doesn’t push into rancidly dark territories. But these marquee shock-ya thrills can’t save Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare. Drag Race UK star Charity Kase shows up briefly to play the Captain Hook to Portlock’s Peter, shackled in the basement and begging for more screen time. There are also two body augmentations executed with gruesome practical effects that’ll sear into your memories. The film embraces taboo and B-movie luridness, but these harder genre leanings – while deliciously insane – are unfortunately not enough to excuse its persistent, underwhelming, and dread-free unremarkableness.
