It was 1902 when the boy who wouldn’t grow up first appeared, in Little White Bird written by Scottish author J.M. Barrie. Since then Peter Pan has become an enduring tale of more innocent times, as well as the power of the imagination.

Here then is an extension of that story, based on Laurie Fox’s 2003 novel Peter Pan.

As a small child, Wendy (Amelia Minto) was visited by a magical young man whose name was Peter. Not only was he going to be a recurring character in her life, but it also appears that he’s visited other members of her family too, all asking them one thing: to never grow up.

Now a full grown woman, Wendy (Livia De Paolis) has a child of her own, but still gets lost in fantasy, now that she is a writer. She’s not only haunted by Peter though, as her mother disappeared from her life many years ago, which meant that she was essentially raised by her American dad.

Although lost in a world of fantasy, her family are keen for her to remain in the real world as much as possible.

The Lost Girls is one of those films where it’s easy to see how it got financed due to having a curious and compelling theme. But films can’t succeed on themes alone, as this one certainly proves.

It is in fact a bad film. A real stinker. With so many elements that could make you pull your hair out if you were so inclined. There are times when it’s supposed to be intentionally jarring, and more times when it isn’t, but it doesn’t stop itself anyway.

A question in point is the acting – it is woeful beyond belief, with just a few examples, mainly being the mother and daughter combo of Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson. They are both a barometer of acting standards that is simply none of the rest of the cast get even close to. Perhaps they should have picked the fable Pinocchio instead, at least they could have gotten away with wooden performances if they did.

It’s not helped by the fact that one of the three versions of Wendy has a completely different accent to the other two; the younger girls are clearly American, with the older version most definitely being European. No surprise really when the part was played by Italian Livia De Paolis.

The director has to be blamed for the poor level of acting throughout, it’s so poor it makes amateur dramatics appear professional. It’s no surprise how one of the worse proponents, De Paolis, is also the director. It has a whiff of a passion project that somehow came to fruition, only for all those concerned to wish it hadn’t.

You have to give her credit for being consistent however, as the direction is also on the lame side. The special effects are spectacularly poor, as she manages to suck every inch of magic and fantasy from an existing story, leaving a dry, dull husk of a film. And don’t even get us started on Hook’s hook, that looks like it was picked up from the world’s worst fancy costume shop.

It takes a certainly level of incompetency to screw up such a classic, but that’s what De Paolis has managed with this extremely grim fairy tale. Not so much Neverneverland, more Nevernever again.