Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is the latest offering from the so-called Twisted Childhood Universe, which specializes in turning once-cherished fables into slasher-grade shockers. This time, the eternally youthful boy in green tights has become a grown and grisly serial killer who lures kids into a grim fantasy where “Neverland” is just code for certain death. On paper, that premise might sound amusingly audacious, but the final product is more a train wreck than a twisted triumph. Even with an occasional jolt of strong makeup effects and some fleeting moments of vivid gore, you’d be hard-pressed to find much magic in this murky misfire.
From its opening scene (an uninspired “Pennywise in the sewer” knockoff) to the baffling final frames, the film can’t decide if it wants to be a serious psychological thriller or a campy carnival ride through our childhood nightmares. Director/writer Rhys Frake-Waterfield—who first made waves with his gory Winnie-the-Pooh flicks—promised a dark reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s classic. Instead, we get a meandering body-count flick in which Martin Portlock’s Peter Pan mutters about “saving” children from adulthood while parading around like a second-rate clown with scars. There’s no tangible sense of a “Neverland,” no real lore about how this maniac sprang from Barrie’s original hero, and not a whiff of that beguiling escapism the source material is known for.
Then there’s Tinker Bell (Kit Green), a jittery transgender sidekick who’s interesting in concept but never rises above caricature—much like Charity Kase’s near-invisible Captain Hook. Hook is barely in the movie, and zero backstory explains how this “villain” we know from the books transformed into a cameo-level weirdo. By the time Tink descends into her next drug-fueled meltdown, or Hook resurfaces for thirty perfunctory seconds, viewers may find themselves pining for the corny treasure hunts and pirate fights of the Disney cartoon.
Despite a strong opening-credits animation sequence—a hallmark of the Twisted Childhood Universe—the live-action portion devolves into a painfully standard (and thoroughly nonsensical) slasher routine. Where Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey at least leaned into campy, over-the-top gore, Neverland Nightmare tries for a darker, more tortured tone but lacks the narrative heft to pull it off. Characters float in and out without motives, the Darling family dynamic is patchy at best, and repeated references to Peter’s twisted childhood remain half-baked. The film’s pacing—and logic—go completely out the window once Peter starts snatching kids off school buses and calling it salvation.
A major misstep in these “twisted childhood” adaptations is that they rely on shock value by turning beloved characters into hollow, unrecognizable murderers rather than genuinely exploring the dark potential of their enchanted worlds. The idea of Peter Pan or Pooh Bear as rampaging maniacs can feel lazy because it sacrifices the wonder and nuance of their original environments in favor of cheap gore. A more compelling approach would be to tap into the unsettling aspects already lurking in these fantasies—the labyrinth of Neverland or the eerie Hundred Acre Wood—to intensify the inherent dread. By reimagining the magical realms themselves as nightmarish landscapes, filmmakers could craft stories that remain true to the source material’s awe-inspiring qualities while evolving them into the realm of horror instead of just slapping a machete in a beloved character’s hand and hoping the audience finds it edgy enough.
While certain practical effects look admirably sick, and the production design does achieve a creepy, dilapidated hideout for Pan, nothing can shake the sense that we’re witnessing a public-domain grab, not a passion project. Even the marketing gimmick of “the worst Twisted Childhood flick yet” feels less like a confession and more like an inevitability. If you’re desperate to see beloved literary characters butchered in name only, Neverland Nightmare might scratch a bizarre itch. But for anyone hoping to find genuine scares, witty revisionism, or even a sliver of logic, you’ll likely come away wishing this Pan had stayed in the realm of bedtime stories.
1.5/5 Stars
