Samuel Freeman’s directorial debut, the found-footage horror “Don’t Look in the Dark,” made its North American premiere at the New Jersey Film Festival this past Saturday. When the screening was first announced, Freeman—a veteran genre producer—stated his goal was “to create a theatrical experience like no other,” and Freeman delivers exactly that: a sensory assault that trades traditional narrative for 71 minutes of disorienting dread.
From its forest setting to its shaky, low-light camerawork, the film’s DNA is clearly linked to 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project.” It even opens with a chillingly similar disclaimer:
On April 4, 2022, a couple went camping in the Pinelands National Reserve.
Without their knowledge, their phones mysteriously began recording, capturing broken audio and video of the events that followed.
This is their final account.
However, Freeman quickly subverts the genre’s tropes. Unlike Blair Witch, which allowed the audience to bond with the leads through direct addresses to the camera, “Don’t Look in the Dark” offers no such intimacy. Instead, we are dropped into the middle of the getaway, hearing Golan (Dennis Puglisi) and his pregnant wife, Maya (Rebi Paganini), as they sing a lullaby in Italian.
Because the conceit is that the phones are recording without their knowledge, we rarely see our protagonists. In fact, you hear Golan and Maya more than you ever see them on screen. When the screen isn’t black, at the least you’re getting the landscape around them and at most a foot, a hand, or the back of their head. It’s also worth noting that, being a cell phone, most of what you see is presented vertically.
The plot follows the couple’s journey into the Pinelands National Reserve to honor Maya’s late father. When Maya becomes convinced she sees a child lurking near an overturned tree, the trip spirals into a nightmare.
Roughly half of the film is shrouded in literal darkness. While the use of intermittent flashes and broken footage could feel gimmicky in lesser hands, here it serves a clear purpose. Your eyes strain to find shapes in the void; your brain scrambles to make sense of the sensory fragments.
The audio design is equally punishing. The soundscape swings from muffled whispers to booming, distorted cries, keeping the audience in a state of constant anxiety. One specific scene featuring Golan’s frantic breathing during a panic attack was so visceral that I felt myself getting worked up. Not because I was scared, but because the sheer intensity of the cinematic experience was overwhelming.
Once the couple loses their way, the plot is effectively swallowed by the woods. Everything becomes ambiguous, and by the time the credits roll, Freeman refuses to provide even a hint of a traditional resolution.
This film will certainly not be for everyone. It abandons narrative hand-holding in favor of pure, experimental atmosphere. If you are a found-footage purist or an audience member who enjoys being left with the question, “What the hell did I just experience?” then this is a must-see.
“Don’t Look in the Dark” is the rare film that demands a second viewing—if only to spend time pausing and rewinding to catch the fleeting horrors that the brain couldn’t quite process the first time around.
