attempts to bridge the connections between the movie and "Peter Pan"

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2008)

I think it's a shame that this movie is being considered solely as a horror movie and has been widely criticized for not delivering a "horror movie ending". The brilliance of this film lies in delicate allusion to the children's classic story "Peter Pan". The children of the orphanage, which were originally frightening, are not meant to be the classic scary, vicious children found in common and drawn out and dying horror films; in fact these children are not evil at all, as they attempt to help Laura in her quest for Simon. We are so used to generic, boring horror movies based solely upon the idea that the audience is either going to cover their eyes or jump in their seats, that we have failed to recognize true brilliance; the Orphanage is brilliant! These children simply were not horror movie children, they were Peter Pan's lost boys, or the "lost children" as Simon refers to them. This idea is constant throughout the film with the games and with the idea that the children are existing as children who are dead, and thus unable to grow up. In Never Never Land, you never grow old, and it is Never Never Land that they are waiting for.
And perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that Simon is Peter Pan, or a metaphor for Peter Pan. Or perhaps Thomas is Peter Pan, as he is the one that instigates the whole thing. Shortly after meeting Thomas, in fact, Simon asks Laura if she will go with him to Never Never Land. Laura says that she is too old to go, or too much detached from her childhood at the orphanage. At the end she becomes a part of them; she becomes the children's Wendy, or the gate to Never Never Land, which, in the end, is where they all end up, including Laura. However, since in the original story, Wendy is too old to return to Never Never Land, perhaps it is here that the director adds his own message: you are NEVER too old for Never Never Land.