Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare review
God help me…I’m starting to like the Poohniverse.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare
Directed by Scott Chambers
Screenplay by Scott Chambers
Starring Martin Portlock, Megan Placito, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Chastity Case, Teresa Banham and Nicolas Woodeson
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare
The third entry in the Poohniverse is upon us. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare leaves the anthropomorphic animals behind for a surprisingly grounded thriller. This is more The Black Phone than Mary Had a Little Lamb or, yes, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. The signs of growth for the public domain franchise were evident in Blood and Honey 2. Neverland Nightmare marks another step in the right direction.
Peter Pan (Martin Portlock) is sick. Not in a “clap your hands to bring Tinker Bell back to life” kind of way. In an abduct children with the promise of taking them to Neverland…kind of way. Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) is his latest abductee…snatched while biking home from school. Michael’s sister Wendy (Megan Placito) feels responsible for his disappearance and sets out to find him before it’s too late.
Last year another horror movie utilizing characters from children’s stories in the public domain (unaffiliated with the Poohniverse) hit VOD. It was called Alice in Terrorland. I’ll let you guess which story it was borrowing from. The movie had its share of problems…but it felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the run of the mill productions based around free IP. Instead of shoehorning a slasher motif upon a beloved classic (like is currently happening to Mickey Mouse), Alice in Terrorland used names and iconography from Lewis Carroll’s story to tell a more grounded, psychological horror story. The result was more interesting and effective than the boatload of low budget slashers we’ve been receiving. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare seems to have learned this lesson.
Neverland Nightmare features a lot of character names you’d recognize. Peter, Wendy, Michael, John, Tinker Bell, Tiger Lilly…there’s even a sort of Captain Hook. There’s talk of fairies and lost boys…and, of course, Neverland. None of these concepts are applied in a way that is familiar to the original story, however. This isn’t set in a fantasy realm. Refreshingly, it isn’t even a slasher movie. Sure, it will pour on the blood and gore when it wants to…but it isn’t what you were probably expecting when you first heard they were making a Peter Pan horror movie. That’s a good thing.
I mentioned The Black Phone as a sign to point you towards what Neverland Nightmare is about. While there is no magical spirit phone here…it will still give you a pretty good idea. Children are taken by this version of Peter Pan. He’s not flying around in a green hat…he’s throwing them in a van and driving them to their fates. I could see this being a disappointment to anyone who was looking forward to a movie where the boy who wouldn’t grow up was turned magical slasher killer…but for most of us the kidnapper route works just fine.
That is, in large part, due to the committed performance of Martin Portlock as Peter. There’s a bit of Brad Dourif playing the Joker in the performance. That is meant as a compliment. It’s a fittingly unsettling take on a character who will walk onto a bus full of children in broad daylight and end up with the headline on the news that night. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare isn’t afraid to go after children. It’s also more than happy to remove body parts from adults. The familiar characters…the heightened gore…they work better in the context of a solid horror premise than they have in aimless slashers. Here, the Peter Pan expectations add a layer of creepiness to Peter’s story. They don’t overwhelm it.
The most important part of Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare turns out to be that it would be a decent little horror movie if it had no connection to J.M. Barrie’s classic tale at all. That may seem obvious…but I would direct you towards any number of previous attempts (including inside the Poohniverse itself) to see how rare it is. By prioritizing the simple story over the twisting of beloved characters, writer/director Scott Chambers (who played Christopher Robin in Blood and Honey 2) has cracked the secret of making public domain horror work.
One thing you won’t find in Neverland Nightmare is an ounce of humor. It’s an appropriately dark story given the subject matter…but there is a surprising lack of attempt to raise so much as a smile from the audience at any point. No sarcastic friend to lighten the bleakness of the situation. No winking at itself. Just a sick man abducting and slaughtering in a realistic way. I almost want to applaud Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare for managing to take itself so seriously without it teetering into eye-rolling territory. We’re still talking about a script that has to shoehorn in imagery and ideas from a children’s story, after all.
With a cast that far exceeds expectations in this sort of movie, top-notch gore effects and a full commitment to story over fan service…Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare succeeds where so many others have failed. There are still issues, of course. Underdeveloped B-plots are dropped the moment they are no longer of service to the A-story. Character arcs abandoned in favor of a prolonged climax in Peter Pan’s house of nightmares. In fairness…everything should cease to matter once Michael is taken. You aren’t going to be worrying about boyfriend problems while trying to survive a madman’s wrath. But it does lead to an incomplete feeling when the credits roll.
Scare Value
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is a surprisingly solid movie…with or without the intellectual property. The addition of Peter Pan concepts adds to the dark horror story rather than informing it. There’s enough blood and gore for those who want it. Performances are strong…especially from the titular character. It’s a more grounded and straight-forward movie than you’d expect. And it’s better for it.
2.5/5
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare Link
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