PETER PAN'S NEVERLAND NIGHTMARE (2025)

Studio:   ITN Distribution
Director: Scott Chambers
Writer:   Scott Chambers
Producer: Scott Chambers, Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Stars:    Megan Placito, Martin Portlock, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Kierston Wareing, Charity Kase, Nicholas Woodeson

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Wendy Darling mounts a desperate attempt to rescue her kidnapped brother Michael from an evil Peter Pan.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Amid a wave of missing children, a young boy named James attends a traveling circus where he becomes enthralled by a clown who is actually Peter Pan wearing mime makeup. At the boy’s home afterward, Peter beckons to James from beneath the floorboards with a promise to take him to Neverland. James’s mother Roxy hurriedly intervenes until Peter hacks her with a cleaver. Roxy mutilates Peter’s face while fighting back, but Peter beats her with a meat tenderizer, tears off her scalp, and kidnaps James.

15 years later, divorced mother Mary Darling tasks her adult daughter Wendy with taking Wendy’s youngest brother Michael to school while Wendy’s other brother John leaves separately on his own. During their drive, Wendy playfully teases Michael about it being his birthday, which she forgot. Wendy drops off Michael at the school where he bonds with his best friend Joey, whose older sister Tiger Lily works with Wendy at a hair salon.

In a drug den he uses as a hideout, Peter Pan keeps his subservient companion Tinkerbell doped up on heroin injections she believes to be “pixie dust.” Tinkerbell joins Peter in his “Neverland” van as he drives out to abduct more boys.

At the hair salon, Wendy discusses a dilemma involving her boyfriend Robbie, who has been ghosting her since proposing they move to London together, with Lily and their other coworker Mia. Mia invites the two women on a glamping trip to the 100-Acre Wood with her friends, but Wendy and Lily decline.

To hide his disfigured face, Peter steals a mask from a costume store. Peter then viciously kills the store clerk, Lee.

Wendy returns to the school to pick up Michael, but she unexpectedly encounters Robbie, who tries telling Wendy he isn’t ignoring her, but he has been rethinking their move to the city after feeling pressured by her. While his sister is distracted, Michael rides home on the new bike his mother got him for his birthday. Michael hits a tripwire trap in a forest that allows Peter to kidnap Michael in his van.

Wendy and her mother Mary consult a police officer about Michael’s worrisome disappearance. At their home, the two women receive a taunting phone call where Peter Pan threatens to take Michael to Neverland while circus music plays in the background.

In the rundown building where the boy is being held captive, Peter forces Michael to play a frightening game of hide-and-seek. Peter threatens to kidnap Michael’s friend Joey, too.

Desperate to find her brother, Wendy recalls how Peter Pan was involved in previous abductions, but he was presumed dead and largely forgotten about. Accompanied by Lily and Joey, Wendy seeks advice from a man named Steven, who recounts how his effeminate son Timmy was kidnapped by Peter years ago.

While Peter slaughters a driver and an entire busload of schoolboys in search of Joey, Tinkerbell is left alone with Michael. Michael learns Tinkerbell mistakenly believes she can become a fairy by continuing to follow Peter Pan. Michael also tries convincing Tinkerbell of the disturbing truth about Peter.

Mindful of the doubts Michael introduced, Tinkerbell asks Peter if the boys he takes actually go to Neverland or if something else happens to them. Peter angrily warns Tinkerbell to never question him. Peter then beats Michael for his disobedience.

Wendy sleeps at Lily and Joey’s house. During the night, Peter infiltrates the home, stabs Lily to death, kills the siblings’ father Miles, and suffocates their mother Mel with a plastic bag while Wendy hides in fear.

After Peter abducts Joey, Wendy follows Peter’s van back to his hideout. Tinkerbell catches Wendy in the act of searching for her brother, but she allows her to do so without alerting Peter. Peter gives Tinkerbell another heroin dose when she questions him again about what happens to the boys supposedly brought to Neverland. Peter tells Tinkerbell she already knows the truth.

Wendy ultimately wrestles Michael away from Peter. Tinkerbell stops their escape, but Wendy convinces Tinkerbell to let them go by revealing Peter lied about Tinkerbell’s family not wanting her to return home as a way to keep her dependent on him. When Tinkerbell subsequently confronts Peter about his lies, Peter hacks her limbs off and crushes her head with his boot.

In the basement, Wendy frees Joey from a coffin where he was confined. Joey escapes outside through a window. Also in the basement, Wendy encounters James, who turned semi-feral after being given a hook for a hand and chained up in the cellar since Peter took him 15 years ago.

Wendy and Michael get into a long physical fight with Peter. Wendy stops her brother from repeatedly bashing Peter’s face to spare Peter’s life. However, James vengefully uses his hook to pull Peter away from behind. Summoned by an emergency phone call Michael made earlier, sirens are heard approaching outside.

One year later, the Darling Family celebrates Michael’s birthday again. Festivities are interrupted when Wendy receives an ominous phone call with circus music playing in the background.

---

Review:

The bane of a bored indie horror critic, and any fan who frequents fright films for that matter, used to be the endless avalanche of DIY Amityville catastrophes causing one to question how hungry they really are for any cheap B-movie meal. Lately, it looks like that dishonor now belongs to the rising tide of tiresome public domain plop where classic characters are lazily repurposed as straightforward slashers. The current culprit is “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare,” the first entry in the extended “Twisted Childhood Universe,” formerly known as the “Poohniverse,” to branch out from the humdrum homicides of Winnie-the-Pooh and his bloodthirsty band of men in masks who are supposed to be anthropomorphic animals.

Ah, Peter Pan! Epic battles aboard pirate ships. A lagoon loaded with mermaids. Fairies flying around London landmarks. A hook-handed nemesis with a vendetta against a crocodile that has a clock in its stomach. Imagine the possibilities!

Keep imagining because the only place you’ll see anything close to a spectacular sight is inside your own mind. The “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” movies supposedly make decent bank, but it doesn’t appear as though anyone wants to put that money back onto the screen. Judging by its raggedy production value, “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” couldn’t afford a Jack-in-the-Box taco, or even the wrapper it comes in, so instead of investing a penny to envision a nightmarish Neverland with creepiness and creativity, the entire movie takes place in the real world where Peter’s lair is nothing more than a rundown drug den.

At least with the “Blood and Honey” films, you can almost kind of sort of, although not really, go along with the idea that the killers are villainous versions of Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, provided you ignore how painfully obvious it is that they’re merely burly stuntmen in latex makeup. Meanwhile, there’s nearly nothing remotely “Peter Pan” about this Peter Pan. During one quick shot from behind, there’s a brief glimpse of Peter in his floppy green hat. That’s it. In “Neverland Nightmare,” Peter Pan is just a clown-faced pedo who slaughters parents and kidnaps boys with his van. For all we know, he has no magic at all, and could only be a crazy child murderer who assumed the identity of a beloved childhood figure.

Peter does have Tinkerball as a companion though, except she’s an ordinary junkie flunky who regularly dopes up on heroin she’s been led to believe is “pixie dust.” How edgy. What’s the text equivalent of a rolling eyes emoji?

When it’s not directly imitating iconic imagery from better movies, like aping Pennywise from “It,” “Neverland Nightmare’s” camera often remains content to sit there, recording people talking without overthinking artistic angles. Whoever is in the scene, the lens usually shoots them straight-on with a little bit of lead space on the side of the screen where they’re looking. You wonder why the film bothered framing for a horizontal aspect ratio when so much of the blocking involves vertical bodies with stagnant scenery flanking them on either side.

“Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” is directed by Scott Chambers, whose name might be recognized as the actor who played Christopher Robin in “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II” (review here). Chambers’ unexpectedly sharp performance was far and away the best part of that sequel. As a director, Chambers went by the name Scott Jeffrey when he previously helmed such lo-fi films as “Firenado,” “Spider in the Attic,” and “Cannibal Troll,” all of which have IMDb user ratings ranging between 2.5 and 2.8, to give you an idea of how well received his other efforts have been. Since I haven’t seen any of those movies, I can’t say this is even worse. However, I have had the displeasure of watching all three “Twisted Childhood Universe” entries thus far, so I can say “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” is the cheesiest, sleaziest, most senseless, and least entertaining of the trio. Ironically, this means Scott Chambers is now tied to both the single bright spot and the biggest sore spot in the TCU to date.

Would you ever think of giving the time of day to a bargain bin flick about a stringy-haired psycho abducting little kids, and featuring unfamiliar actors running around a ramshackle house, if Peter Pan had nothing whatsoever to do with it? Do you think you would have even heard of the film in the first place? So what’s the point in paying “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” any underserved attention it attracted simply by being the first terrible-movie terrorist to hijack a lapsed Disney property for exploitation in hacky horror?

Review Score: 15

---