Watch out, world: the hierarchy of power in the Winnie-the-Poohniverse is about to change. Months after Pooh and friends’ massacre in Blood and Honey 2, a new player has entered The Twisted Childhood Universe. Enter Peter Pan, although you’d be hard-pressed to recognise him as such.
As re-imagined by director Scott Chambers and Blood and Honey mastermind Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Peter Pan (Martin Portlock) is a sinister figure preying on the lonely and vulnerable as he sets about recruiting his Lost Boys. After throwing them into the back of his van (who needs fairy dust), Paedo – sorry, Peter – Pan then sends them off to ‘Neverland’ following a period of imprisonment in his shithole dungeon. Oh, Tinkerbell (Kit Green) is here, too, but she’s too zonked out on heroin to be of any use. Peter Pan, you so edgy.
When young Michael Darling (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) is kidnapped, older sister Wendy (Megan Placito) launches a crusade to get her brother back, sneaking into Neverland Ranch Peter’s home for a confrontation with this nightmarish figure and his grotesque menagerie. And, with Peter all set for Michael’s one-way trip to ‘Neverland,’ time is ticking.
Like the preceding Winnie-the-Pooh films, Neverland Nightmare is a deviously macabre take on the classic childhood story, stomping roughshod all over J.M. Barrie’s work and its Disneyfied counterpart. Its titular killer is more demonic horror clown than Peter Pan proper – think Pennywise meets The Black Phone – but Portlock delivers a chilling performance as the boy who wouldn’t grow up. Themes of child murder and abduction put this in a darker bracket than previous entries in the MC-Pooh (Monstrous Cinematic Poohiverse – you can have that one for free, Mr Frake-Waterfield). So too does its troubling depiction and treatment of Tink – here reimagined as a former kidnap victim of Peter’s turned accomplice.
None of this will do much to deflect accusations of the TCU being an exercise in sustained edgelordism, but there’s also more substance to the story than one might imagine from a low-budget horror film about an off-brand Peter Pan murdering children in his stinky hovel.
PETER PAN’S NEVERLAND NIGHTMARE is out on limited release in the US on January 13th, and will be available in the UK soon.
