In this demented/twisted/fucked-up serial killer flick that your mum and dad don’t want you to see, we meet, yeah you guessed it – Peter Pan. And he’s a, yeah, you guessed it – a serial killer. And yep, you guessed it again – he murders children, sometimes in broad daylight. And not one by one, but in drones. The few lives he spares gets trapped in his dungeon basement. Oh my… calling the whambulance is no use here. So there’s no big shocker to say that this isn’t the Peter Pan that we know from our classic childhood fairy tales, but rather a homicidal maniac who lives out his sick fetish role-playing fantasies.
Pan is also a hardcore junkie who lives comfy enough in an abandoned manor somewhere in the idyllic British countryside of Ashdown with his one and only Tinker Bell, an unpleasant sight by itself who looks more like the sister of Longlegs. Instead of heroin, we have pixie dust. It’s the same shit though, so don’t get fooled, kids. Stay outta drugs and have some Kava instead.
But at the end of the day, Peter Pan actually means all well. Because he doesn’t kill children just for the hell of it, but in order to send their souls to Neverland to save them from the evil world that we live in. Your typical road to hell that is paved with good intentions, to put it that way. Neverland is, after all, a place where you can be a little boy for the rest of your existence. And since dead people don’t age…well, you get the idea. Sweet dreams.
The film starts with a quick, flashback story of Pan (Martin Portlock) where he works as a mime artist at a circus. After performing in front of a group of kids, he stalks one of the kids home, which by a wild coincidence is named James Hook. After sneaking into his bedroom through a trapdoor, where we also have a quick Pennywise reference (because why not), the kid’s mother spots him and hell breaks loose. After a brutal fight in the kitchen that goes from bruises to chopped-off toes by a meat cleaver, a disfigured face and a scalped head, Pan takes Hook with him before we jump fifteen years later.
Then we meet the upper-class family, the Darlings, just another wild name coincidence, where the older sister Wendy (Megan Placito) is driving her youngest brother Michael (Peter DeSouza, the possessed kid from Pope’s Exorcist) to school. Michael is depressed, and since it’s his birthday and all, Wendy tries her best to make his day a little easier by also intending to pick him up after school. Aaw, how thoughtful. Too bad that she gets distracted on the phone by her boyfriend when Michael leaves the school on a bike, which leads to him being captured by our psycho killer Peter Pan The Grabber. While Michael is trapped in his manor where he’s forced to play games like hide-and-seek, a guilt-stricken Wendy sets out to find her brother.
Terrifier meets The Black Phone says hello to Castle Freak, written and directed by Scott Chambers, a living non-stop Duracell Bunny who made only eleven movies in 2021 alone, according to his IMDb. Geez, I’m having a stroke just thinking about it. Can’t say I’ve seen any of them though, except from Exorcist Vengeance (2022) only because of Robert Bronzi, the famous Charles Bronson clone. While his previous films have an average rating between 2.8 and 3.6, it’s fair to assume that he has had a major skill upgrade at some point. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is a more polished and overall professional-made movie than you’d expect, all from the camerawork, production design, sound, pacing, acting, and, of course, the effects, which are all practical, as far as I could see. To be completely honest, this looks more like it could be in the same universe as Damien Leone’s Terrifier than the Poohniverse. And that’s probably the best compliment I can give.
The most remarkable here is Martin Portlock as Peter Pan – a brilliant and charismatic actor who just came as a lightning strike from the blue sky when he went viral in the UK after his appearance as a witch on Britain’s Got Talent. Here, he’s a mix of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Freddy Krueger and Radu the vampire with a dark and a seductive British voice that would even make Hugh Grant blush. He’s as ruthless and mean-spirited as he’s intimidating. I also liked the angle with the Tinker Bell character, played by Kit Green. Her and Peter’s relationship is a pure psychological warzone, if the circumstances weren’t hell already. Her story of how she ended up in this pit of misery would be an interesting spinoff by itself. And if you want the blood and gore, you’ll get it. The third act goes especially full throttle in the splatter & gore department, with a cute final girl and all, which you can guess who.
So yeah, all in all, a gritty, gory, tension-filled and morbidly entertaining ride you’ll never experience at Disneyland, even after dark. Solid stuff. I hope we see Martin Portlock in more horror films, while it’ll be interesting to see what Scott Chambers does next. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is available on streaming on Amazon Prime, or (for us Norwegians) on Viaplay.


Writer and director: Scott Chambers
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Megan Placito, Martin Portlock, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Teresa Banham, Olumide Olorunfemi, Campbell Wallace, Nicholas Woodeson, Hardy Yusuf, Harry Whitfield
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21955520/