Don't Look In the Dark will leave you disoriented and begging for reprieve

Don’t Look in the Dark is the directorial debut of Samuel Freeman, a genre producer, and follows a simple camping trip turned nightmarish fever dream. Golan and his pregnant significant other Maya head into the Pinelands National Reserve for a quiet camping trip, both meant as a nod for her late father and as a final excursion before parenthood, and quickly realize things are getting odd. As their phones start acting erratically and recording audio and video on their own, and as Maya catches a glimpse of what she thinks is a young child, the peaceful night descends into madness and a scrabble through the woods for survival armed with only their dying phone lights. This found footage film is shown exclusively through the lens of either phone, with the majority being audio only and the aspect ratio matching a vertical phone view. 

This film comes on the heels of this new subgenre of horror that is slowly being pieced together with films such as Skinamarink or the Outwaters. It is a tactile horror experience akin to a nightmare or a terrifying experience. The goal is for the viewer to feel disoriented, find their own fear in what they are being shown, and interpret more abstract visuals and sounds in real time. This usually utilizes found footage as a vessel because it is the easiest way to make the viewer feel like they are one with the POV. They are seeing what the character is seeing so they are just as confused and out of sorts as the character is.

Don’t Look in the Dark is definitely in this vein of filmmaking. It has a simple and effective setup (a must for found footage), and I loved its use of the phone aspect ratio as the visual medium here. I think one of the smartest things they did was make Golan Italian and give him a heavy accent. It characterizes him using simply his voice, and since we really never see our characters, this is so pivotal. It also adds some bits of natural comedy as he bumbles around on some words and expressions. It is incredibly difficult to create characters and storylines using only audio and they do extremely well in that regard. The audio tricks are nicely done. You can tell they really play with the dynamics of louder and softer sounds and how the dialogue might sound from a pocket or from 10 feet away.

Courtesy of Don’t Look In The Dark / Sam Freeman

Samuel Freeman himself explained that he wanted everyone to come away from this film with something slightly different, explaining it was, “made with one goal: to create a theatrical experience like no other. Every audience sees something different. Every theater reveals something new. No two viewings feel exactly the same. It is meant to unsettle you, confuse you, draw you in, and then leave you wondering if you missed something, because maybe you did. This is our attempt to redefine what a found footage film can be, and what watching a horror movie in the dark can truly feel like." I feel like the film left plenty of room for interpretation and analysis, which seems to be the goal.

As much as I appreciate the big swing taken here, and the respect for the found footage genre, I did think that visually this was a tough one. I am all for letting audiences come to their own conclusions on what they saw or heard but I wanted to see more in general. A solid 70 percent of this film is completely pitch black, and while sometimes it is fun, over the course of 70 minutes, it can really wear on the viewer. While I liked the ideas here, seeing the characters, seeing some more frightening imagery, maybe more flashes of the things they are seeing, would have really made this feel like more of a fever dream and less of a recovered audio file.

The middle act here is what feels like the most cumbersome portion. There is just a lack of notable events from the first sight of the child to the end where the pace really picks up. Ultimately, I think marrying this really excellent dialogue and audio with more visuals in general would have really improved the quality here, they can still be abstract and people can still take whatever they may glean from them but at least give them more to look at. 

I am so thrilled that the found footage genre has not been left by the wayside. A concrete part of the rebirth of cultural phenomenon horror experiences like The Blair Witch Project is that brilliant idea to make the viewer be there, like they are the cameraman themselves. It is such a powerful medium and we haven’t even scraped the surface of where it can go. It is inspiring to see up and coming filmmakers try their hand at breathing some life into it. Don’t Look in the Dark is an immersive experience and while it may not be for everyone, it is fascinating, terrifying, and excites me on the future of the subgenre.

Don’t Look in the Dark debuted at the New Jersey Film Festival last month and its next steps are currently being evaluated.