Found Footage Horror Don’t Look in the Dark Screens at New Jersey Film Festival January 31
- Horror Movies Uncut
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
Found footage horror arrives at Rutgers this winter as Don’t Look in the Dark, the feature directorial debut from filmmaker Samuel Freeman, screens January 31 as part of the New Jersey Film Festival.
The film will have its Jersey premiere at Rutgers University, with a 7 p.m. screening inside Voorhees Hall on the New Brunswick campus. Centered on a seemingly simple camping trip gone wrong, Don’t Look in the Dark follows a couple whose phones begin recording on their own in the middle of the woods. What they capture isn’t empty darkness, but something that wants to be seen.
Freeman’s debut has already made waves on the genre circuit. The film previously screened at the Birmingham Horror Film Festival & Convention, where it took home the award for Best Feature. Ahead of its New Jersey screening, Freeman described the project as an attempt to push the boundaries of the found footage format and the theatrical horror experience itself.
“Every audience sees something different. Every theater reveals something new,” Freeman said. “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.”
One of the more intriguing elements surrounding Don’t Look in the Dark is its visual presentation. The film leans heavily into vertical framing, a choice that mirrors the way modern audiences interact with video through phones and social media. While widescreen filmmaking remains dominant, found footage has increasingly become a testing ground for alternative formats, and Freeman’s film feels positioned at the front of that shift. The trailer itself is almost entirely vertical, suggesting a feature that embraces the aesthetics of phone-based horror rather than resisting them.
As conversations around vertical filmmaking continue to grow, Don’t Look in the Dark stands as a timely experiment—one that uses the found footage format to explore how fear can function when the screen itself feels unfamiliar.
Don’t Look in the Dark screens January 31, 2026, at 7 p.m. in Voorhees Hall #105 at Rutgers University, located at 71 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
