For a hot second there, I actually forgot the Poohniverse (aka. The Twisted Childhood Universe) was something that existed. Now, while that sounds like something I’m sure anyone who saw either of the two Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey movies would probably be jealous of, that hasn’t stopped this cinematic universe from forging ahead with presenting messed up versions of Disney characters who have had the misfortune of finding themselves stranded in the cutthroat, anything goes world of the public domain.
Now that Winnie The Pooh and his woodland community has gotten a cheap slasher makeover and a mutated version of Bambi waits in the wings, it’s the turn of Peter Pan to become something so fucked up, it would make JM Barrie spin in his grave like a turnstile on Black Friday. No longer a forever-young adventurer with the power of flight, this Peter Pan is a child stealing maniac with a cheese grater face – but while Neverland Nightmare may have something of a clearer vision than the Pooh movies (Poohvies?), it’s still a gimmick in search of a purpose.
We are introduced to Peter Pan as he works as a clown in a cut-rate fantasy themed circus, but underneath the white grease paint and balloon animals lay a being utterly twisted by years of vicious child abuse who believes its his destiny to save other children from the misery of the world by abducting them and ultimately killing them. We see him in action as he kidnaps young James Hook, but before he manages to kill the young Boy’s mother, she gives Peter something to remember her by when she stabs him repeatedly in the face. Fifteen years later, Peter is still up to his old tricks as he plots in his squalid lair with only Tinkerbell for company – although in this iteration, Tinkerbell is less a tiny glittering fairy with brat issues and more a transgender drug addict riddled with Stockholm Syndrome, who believes the heroin Peter has been supplying her with is “pixie dust”.
His latest target turns out to be young birthday boy Michael Darling whom he abducts after school while his older sister, Wendy, otherwise distracted about her upcoming gap year. The kidnapping instantly tears the Darlings apart, with Wendy’s mother Mary (coincidentally Christopher Robin’s hypnotherapist from Blood & Honey II) blaming her carelessness specifically for the disappearance.
Galvanised by guilt, Wendy goes on a mission to find her brother, but while she searches, Peter steps up his game exponentially and causing a shocking tragedy to hit the headlines. Nevertheless, when Wendy finally manages to get on Pan’s trail, she gets to experience first hand the true extent of his depravity. Its going to take more than a second scar to the right and straight on till morning to find a way get out of this mess…
While Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare manages to continue the oddly dull trawl through standard slasher shenanigans that’s typified the Twisted Childhood Universe thus far, I do have to admit that the movies are getting oh so slightly better. While the first Winne The Pooh movie was unforgivably dull for a story about a couple child’s characters slaughtering their way through a girl’s weekend, the second at least had a little bit of fun with the concept, introducing more of Pooh’s corrupted comrades and adding a tiny bit of visual flair to proceeding (a flaming chainsaw ain’t to be sniffed at). But with Peter Pan’s grungy, Buffalo Bill type retcon, some of the cons of the Poohniverse actually become pros as the movie bends over backwards to present a version of the boy who never grew up into a kidnapper who will ensure thst his victims always threw up by going as perverse and deranged as it possibly can. His face lanced by knfe scars is hidden with a smiling mask, he drives around in a creepy old van dressed in a filthy green tunic looking for kids and he has a hugely dysfunctional relationship with “Tinkerbell” and you can tell that the filmmakers had fun making the classic character as grimy and unpalatable as possible. If rumours are true, Peter Pan is essentially going to be the equivalent to Loki in 2012’s The Avengers and will be the main antagonist, so going all Wes Craven with the paradigm shift actually makes sense and kudos have to go to Martin Portlock for throwing himself so totally into the role and the fact that he frequently takes instruction from a vision of a shadow of a classic Peter Pan is actually a nice touch.
However, the world building of the Twisted Childhood Universe has never really been the problem when compared to the execution, and it’s here where Peter Pan’s grotty reimaginings soon lose altitude. Yes, Portlock goes all in portraying the abused and abusive Pan with energy, menace and a bunch of full body prosthetics that reveal he’s been heavily scarred and de-penised at some point in his miserable life, but instead of putting all that enthusiasm into creating a new character, the actor instead just alternates between aping the Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix Jokers when he isn’t flat out ripping off Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise. I understand that pulling that off isn’t exactly easy to do (it’s got to be hell on the old vocal chords at the very least), but when the movie literally has a opening scene that sees Pan puts on Ledger’s voice while wearing Phoenix’s makeup and lures a child into a dark hole like Skarsgård, you tend to just check out.
The rest of the film is pretty standard. While any camp laughs are understandably tough to mine when your main plot thread is the abduction and murder of children, the movie’s quest to be unrelentingly grim (but, thankfully not the Nightmare On Elm Street remake level of grim) means that’s it’s forgotten to be either legitimate scary, or even remotely gripping. The family drama between the Darlings is soap opera stilted and while Megan Placito gives decent final girl, the entire final act is a repetitive slog as every one bounces from stalking, hiding or savagely fighting for their lives over and over again. However, I’ll say it again, as dreary and dull as Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare can be, there’s still a noticable growth in quality with every subsequent release and after tackling various slashers with its first three entries, a probable shift to the killer animal genre with the upcoming Bambi Unleashed will hopefully add some variety to the rogues gallery of post-Disney maniacs.
While the Twisted Childhood Universe still has a long way to go to be seen as anything other than a cheap, Sharknado-style viral gimmick, the fact that it’s parade of family movie freaks is gradually getting better gives hope that this entire enterprise may yet prove its worth. However, those who don’t like their killer kid’s stories to take themselves too seriously had better spritz themselves with pixie dustcand get the fuck out of dodge.
Can the Poohniverse ever get truly good? Never say Neverland, I guess.
🌟🌟
We Have Issues 