It looks like 2025 will continue the recent trend of horror movie adaptations of beloved childhood characters. “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” will be the latest addition to the ever-expanding Poohniverse kick started in 2023 with “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” The upcoming film’s director Scott Chambers recently discussed some of his inspirations for this twisted retelling.
Namely the 2016 Australian thriller “Hounds of Love,” directed by Ben Young. That movie tells the story of a suburban husband and wife who abduct teenage girls to abuse and murder them. “There was a lot of manipulation between that couple, and I found that so fascinating,” Chambers told Entertainment Weekly. “I brought a lot of that into this.”
“Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare”
To be fair, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell have had demented co-dependency since J.M. Barrie’s original 1911 novel. Disney’s animated version cleaned up A LOT of the story but plenty of sinister hints remained. It sounds like Chambers will be cranking it up to 11.
“Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” stars Kit Green as Tinkerbell and Martin Portlock as Peter Pan. Chambers envisions “a very f—ed up” and “very twisted” relationship between the two. In this version, Tinkerbell is assigned male at birth (AMAB) and given the name Timmy. Timmy becomes an early victim of Peter who abducts young boys to send them to Neverland. However, because Timmy is a transgirl, she cannot become a Lost Boy.
“She didn’t fit the criteria to actually be sent fully to Neverland,” Chambers explains. “Then he says, however, you can be something else. You can be this fairy, you can be magical, but you’ve got to help me. I’ll give you this pixie dust, and if you keep taking it…Every time you are good, you can have some.”
Except, since this is a horror movie, that pixie dust is really heroin. By the time Peter sets his sights on abducting Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), the younger brother of Wendy Darling (Megan Placito), Tink is fully addicted to the drug and dependent on her captor/supplier. This will give our beloved fairy a rather distorted and disheveled look. “I wanted there to be an element of krokodil, which is a really bad drug that you inject, and it just rots your skin,” Chambers said.
Who’s The Real Villain?
To clarify Tinkerbell “…is not a villain at all,” according to the director. “This is an extremely layered character. This is someone that’s really troubled. They’re brainwashed. It’s Stockholm Syndrome. They’ve been in this situation for years and years and years. They don’t know any other way.” Green was hired specifically for her abilities to convey this nuanced take on the character. “She just really tapped into it where no one else was,” he says. “As soon as I saw the audition, I was like, ‘Yes!’”
Peter will also be in Jagged Edge Productions’ upcoming “Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble” which is a crossover of all the studio’s villainous children’s characters. “The reason Peter Pan is quite a serious and dark film is because when we get to Poohniverse, I do need you to feel a certain way about Peter Pan,” explains Chambers. “I need you to have an instant, ‘Oh, I don’t like him.’ He’s really twisted. He’s really messed up. When he’s next to Pooh, he doesn’t look so bad, do you know what I mean? So, there’s got to be the bads and the big bads and all that kind of stuff. I’m trying to get it ready for when we get to that movie.”
“Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” will open in theaters for just three days between January 13th and 15th. You can grab tickets here. You can check out the trailer below:
