Review: Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025)

Looks like I am committed to the Poohniverse.

Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare follows Wendy Darling (Megan Placito) as she tries to find her brother Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) after he is abducted by child killer Peter Pan (Martin Portlock).  Featuring a second appearance of Mary Darling (Teresa Banham reprising the role after her first appearance in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2), this is the first broadening of the Poohniverse (it released before Bambi: The Reckoning and features returning characters unlike that film).

This one took a little longer for me to get into than the other movies in the series. There's some brutality early on that isn't any more off-putting than anything else in this series.  Maybe it is the (to me) unnecessary grotesqueness that permeates the early going.  Peter Pan (as seen in the above poster) gets scarred during a prologue abduction, but it doesn't end there: Tinker Bell (Kit Green) and Hook (Charity Kase) also lean heavily into extreme makeup.

The first 30ish minutes are spent getting us to the main plot (Wendy searching for Michael), at which point the movies has to do some serious padding to not resolve in record time.  Weirdly, this is when the movie picks up a bit for me.  Even more weird, the scene that starts the padding but brings up the energy of the movie is one where Peter Pan kills a very large number of people (that I am keeping vague to avoid spoilers).

The stakes thus raised, Wendy continues her search, with an assist from her friend Tiger Lily (Olumide Olorunfemi) and Tiger Lily's brother Joey (Hardy Yusuf).  She ends up crashing with them when Mary blames Wendy for not noticing that Michael snuck off earlier when she was supposed to pick him up.  This doesn't end well for Tiger Lily or her family.

Which, an aside: There have not been a large number of black characters scattered throughout the Poohniverse, but almost every single one has died, usually quite violently.  The movies are pretty brutal across all kills, but maybe allow one of these characters to survive?  It's a very low bar to clear, but these movies haven't managed it so far.

We cut between Wendy's search and Michael's captivity which is where we get to meet Tinker Bell and guys, I don't know how to approach this.  Tinker Bell is a previous abductee of Peter's who wasn't 'sent to Neverland' (killed) because they were a 'fairy.'  They are trans and while I can appreciate the inclusion of a trans character, they way it is done is... messy.  Other people are better equipped to break down all the ways this is problematic than me, but trust that I'm not sure this is the best of representation.

The movie sprints towards the ending at this point, and I won't spoil how it all goes, but the ending, for me, was unsatisfying.  I get that part of it is a set up for Monster Assembled, but I still think it could have been better.

6 out of 10

Review: Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)

So, I find myself in a situation.

When I wrote my review for Winne the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, I basically said that the Poohniverse looked stupid, and that it and the first Winnie the Pooh movie were terrible if enjoyable.  So what happens when one of these movies is actually... dare I say it... good?

That is the predicament I find myself in right now.  Bambi: The Reckoning, by all accounts, is a well-made, solid film.  The acting is good (even from the child actor!), the design for the evil Bambi is good, as is the CGI for him.  The plot makes sense, the kills are gruesome and well-done... How did they manage to make such a solid entry?  Was it because this is the fourth in the series (I have yet to see Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare but this movie kind of made that a priority?) or did the decision to keep this short (the movie is 80 minutes long with credits) force them to cut any unnecessary tangents out of the film?

To give a brief summary of the film: We get a quick animation of Bambi's history - mother killed by poacher, Faline killed by a van that dumps toxic waste into the waters that Bambi eventually drinks from - then we are immediately into the film, which is basically Bambi Kills Everyone He Can.

There is a human plot: Xana (Roxanne McKee) and her son Benji (Tom Mulheron) are going to visit her husband Simon's (Alex Cooke) family, although Simon cancels his participation due to work obligations before the other two have left.  There are relationship problems between Xana and Simon - he is a distant father - but Xana is trying to hide it from Benji.

There is also a plot regarding some hunters who are obviously after Bambi, but leaves the how and why ambiguous for now.

First unexpected surprise: The two are attacked before they reach the extended family.  The stakes are present fairly early - no slow build - and while not especially gory, the death of the cab driver is still brutal.  While our main characters still make it to the family house, they are already hurt and bleeding before the real meat of the movie starts!

We do get a brief breather as we get to meet the extended family.  There's some sort of implied connection between Bambi and Mary (Nicola Wright), the dementia-riddled grandmother of Benji, but otherwise we get quick establishing of the characters (nothing too deep, but enough to separate them as distinct characters from one another) before Bambi attacks the house and sends the family running.

Second unexpected surprise: Bambi doesn't kill everyone in this movie.  Outside of the killer deer, four other characters get various other kills scattered throughout and all of them make sense within the context of the story.  I won't spoil who dies or who kills, but it was a great way to keep the action varied while still keeping the overarching threat of Bambi.

The family (what remains of it, this movie kills characters left and right) eventually meets up with the hunters and the reason the hunters know about Bambi is a fairly major plot reveal, but not delivered with any pomp: they say why they are after him and immediately move to try and kill him.

Third unexpected surprise: The human antagonists (for the hunters do fulfill that role) are actually threatening, both to the family and to Bambi.  There's always the worry in these types of movies that, if there are human antagonists, they are cartoonishly evil or make decisions that are incredibly stupid if any sort of thought it applied to them.  In this movie, they keep it simple and it works wonders as far as increasing their threat.

Overall, I really wasn't expecting anything from this movie other than dumb fun like the previous two movies I watched.  And that was a major mistake on my part!  This movie, judged on its own merits, is good!  It won't win any awards, but it's solid.  I'd even recommend it to people outside those interested in the Twisted Childhood Universe.  Which is not what I expected going into this.

7 out of 10

Review: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

I did not know what to expect going into this one.  The original Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was a quickly-made, low budget film made to capitalize on the newly-public domain source material.  With such a mercenary approach, I went into it with low expectations.  The movie was not great, but I was entertained and the slightest bit charmed by it - it very much gave the vibe of similarly low budget slashers of the 80s, and didn't pretend to be more than it was.  I walked away happy from the film.

The second movie has a budget - a much larger one.  And with that larger budget came the grand ambition of the Poohniverse (no, really).  I was skeptical that the charm it managed in the original would bleed into the sequel, especially with a cinematic universe to be built.

Imagine my surprise when, again, the movie managed to win me over.  It won't make any all-time lists, but the acting is solid (including an appearance from a slumming Simon Callow), the new appearances for for Pooh and Piglet are solid and the additions of Tigger and Owl aren't terrible.  The kills are suitably gruesome and more varied than I expected.

The movie isn't without its faults - You get no sense of how the city is laid out (which, given a path-of-destruction plotline, seems necessary) and it is fairly obvious who the meatbags are among the cast.  While the first had a pair of subversive kills, this one doesn't manage any that are surprising.

The movie also goes out of its way to show some naked breasts which isn't unforgiveable unless you account for the fact that it has a shower scene with a man that doesn't give the gays/women in the audience anything.  At least be equal-opportunity with your gratuitous nudity, filmmakers.

Can I recommend this film?  Not really - it mostly knows who its audience will be and doesn't really try to do anything to pull in non-horror fans.  I'm not even sure most horror fans will enjoy it, even if it does manage a bit of throwback 80s vibe again.  Basically, if you think you will enjoy it, you probably will.  If you think it looks terrible, you probably won't like it.

5 out of 10

PS: The announced movies in the Poohniverse look especially stupid, but I'll be damned if I am not curious.  Might I be the rare blogger to cover them all?  That will require a rewatch and proper review for the first Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey if I decide to commit.  The question is: Should I?