Directed By Scott Chambers

Starring – Martin Portlock, Megan Placito, Peter Desouza-Feighoney

The Plot – Wendy Darling (Placito) strikes out in an attempt to rescue her brother Michael (Desouza-Feighoney) from ‘the clutches of the evil Peter Pan (Portlock).’ Along the way she meets an evil Tinkerbell (Kit Green), and with her newfound knowledge of this captivity, uncovers a dark and haunting history of the boy who believed he could fly.

Rated R for adult language, intense drug use, and brutal sequences of gore

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare – Official Trailer (2025) Megan Placito, Martin Portlock

POSITIVES

Unlike the other films in the now extensive Poohniverse of films, Peter Pan has a built in creep factor to its history that Chambers and his production utilize towards the darkest and most uncomfortable of the three films to this point, even if it is just another kidnapping thriller, at the end of the day. Turned over on the heads of nostalgists who grew up with this tale, “Neverland Nightmare” not only taps into the traumatic spectrum of child abductions, but also finds cleverly creative ways to spin the familiarities of its story’s history, whether in the depravity of its central characters, or the heroin-laced realities of pixie-dust, or the dark secret that is Neverland, where good boys go to seek supposed immortality. Chambers’ unapologetic persistence of his chilling atmosphere, without a single drop of comedically campy levity, allows Peter to stand out among the previous antagonists of this franchise, orchestrating a damply dirty and claustrophobic surrounding within this dominant one house setting that helps maintain the tension of so many secrets in established backstories, all the while appraising the manifestation of this living, breathing terrorist, whose single biggest devastating trait is the humanity that takes advantage of so many vulnerable youths along the way. Chambers’ most commendable aspects are within the increasing improvements to production, that, for the first time nearly make this feel like a big screen presentation worthy of theatrical showcasing. The editing and presentation are stably balanced and coherent, even when the camera work does occasionally teeter on the unfortunate side of shaking camera captivity, and the dependency for practicality in special effects allow it to take its best shot towards unseating Art the Clown for some of the most gruesomely flesh-ripping sequences ever seen, where no victim, regardless of age, will be spared. Without the overabundance of C.G blood deposits obscuring the depiction, the gore is able to zero in on the rubbery stretching and bone-crunching impacts of such devastating blows, with effective sound schemes in the mixing to really make our imaginations flow at the permanency of blunt force traumas persisting in those hard to reach areas of the body that go undepicted, and while I’ve certainly seen worse in carnage candy, it’s an impressive statement on the elevating productions of these movies, which I never could’ve even imagined after the high school film student consistency that was “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey”. Lastly, the performances also deserve a load of the credit towards keeping me invested to characters who I legitimately attained empathy for, particularly that of Megan Placito and Peter Desouza-Feighoney, whose sibling bond help to humble the meaningful kind of humanity that is sometimes lost or underarticulated in movies intended to convey both sides, victim and seeker, of the kidnapping framing device. Desouza-Feighoney’s effortlessly steals our hearts as a boy plucked from the clutches of his loving family on his birthday, with watery deposits emiting the kind of isolated loneliness that permeates naturally within a child performance pushed just far enough, without feeling melodramatic. Likewise, Placito’s initial irresponsibility of immaturity within the characterization transforms to longing and regret without blinking, giving us a stoic protagonist who masters resiliency on the terms of the ever-changing situation, with just enough charisma to exceed her capabilities in a character design that is a bit one-dimensional. But this movie is definitely Martin Portlock’s for the taking, as a side of Peter Pan that you’ve definitely never seen. Portlock’s ability to perform a character who can actually speak dialogue puts him far more valuable than Pooh or any of his Wildwood friends from the previous films, and Portlock takes advantage of this with a coldly unrelenting antagonist that feels like the concoction of mixing The Grabber with Pennywise the Clown, with an eerily resonating vocal contortion that balances the mixed personalities within this devilish persona, which Portlock uses to cement his own irreplaceable impact on the film.

NEGATIVES

In terms of the inferior side of things, this is yet another surface level exploration of the fantastically imaginative property that doesn’t even touch the surface of the possibilities that the movie could’ve elicited from an uncomfortable legend that practically writes itself. Because the script uses the entirety of its first act to establish the characters and meanings of the titular world, it leaves the rest of the film flat within the clutches of being just another kidnap thriller, with more than a few similarities to predecessor films of the genre that I couldn’t shake in a movie trying to cement its own original foundation for prominence. I previously mentioned that Peter felt like a combination of the killers from “The Black Phone” and “Stephen King’s It”, and that’s because the script borrows so forcefully from iconic scenes from both of these movies, almost in a complete recreation fashion, without adding anything originally integral to allow it to stand out on its own, or feel freshly invigorating. Then there’s examples like a compelling subplot pertaining to gay characters unable to find their way to Neverland, or the complete embarrassment that is Captain Hook’s depiction, that are both completely glossed over without a shred of relevance to the film’s bigger picture. Considering the film spends valuable time outlining the gay bond between Peter and Tinkerbell (Played by a man in this incarnation), it’s appalling that it really goes nowhere other than a device for their eventual confrontation because I did find it the single most fascinating element of this movie’s creativity, conjuring the biggest example of this film’s compressed packaging for creativity, which at barely 84 minutes of run time, can elicit enough opportunities to enact a deeper exploration that this film so desperately deserved. The darkly dramatic tone played straight is also still a nagging issue that I feel needs a little bit of camp to inspire a fun factor to its legion of fans that seek it out. I’m certainly not a stickler for a film that decides to revel in the dark monotony of the world that it crafts for itself, but there’s clearly still things here in this setting that are paranormal to what we would expect from your basic child kidnapper, and with some occasionally silly lines of dialogue or more emphasis in the personality of certain characters, the audience would’ve had an easier time attaching themselves to a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but instead it’s asked to go along with aspects of the characterization that are downright silly, which feel like they directly contradict the sentiment that anything in an established universe of bears who walk like humans, or fairies simply being gay men, demand themselves to be taken seriously. Another tough element remains with the movie’s dialogue, which is about as subtle as a Sherman tank exploding through a nitroglycerine plant, in terms of the subtlety it commands while establishing certain characters and familiarities to their respective constructs. I can almost always forgive an initial introduction to character names being mentioned in such unnatural deliveries, because the audience otherwise wouldn’t comprehend which actors are playing which characters, however they’re rendered with such long-winded outlines that literally halt the movie’s progress, I see a virtual outline of the script intended to hammer as many talking points of familiarity as possible to tie itself to its legend, which keeps these conversations from ever feeling legitimate, especially with the mother character of the children named Daphne, who is essentially just an exposition machine of unapologetic rendering. Finally, while I found much to appreciate about the gore, it’s ultimately Chambers’ direction that doesn’t meet it halfway, without anything in the way of artistic confidence that dresses up the conflicts to attain such a prolonged sense of dread or suspension for the audience to feel. Abrupt execution is certainly a problem that undercuts the sequencing of these creative kills, with resolutions that appear as fast as the conflicts do, leaving them feeling so one-sided and lacking the kind of compelling drama that maximizes the tension. It stands as a great example of how much special effects for gore, no matter how great, need emphasis in set-up from direction to properly steer them towards feeling most impactful, as the ones here never quite simmered to the kind of boiling levels needed to register urgency among its vulnerability.

OVERALL
“Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” is another noteworthy artistic improvement from its predecessors, with improved production values and performances that are finally starting to make this feel like a legitimate big screen franchise, even with lingering issues that still unfortunately keep its ambitions and expectations on the ground. Between surface level exploration within the limitless possibilities of this fantastical world, an execution that takes itself too seriously, and gore that gouges without the grandeur, this is one nightmare that audiences will unfortunately be unable to awake from, until theater workers violently shove them, in order to clean the auditorium for the next lost boys

My Grade: 4.9 or D-