‘The Dark Gets In’ Review: True Crime Gives Way to Supernatural Horror at Beyond Fest
‘The Dark Gets In’ Review: Sean Hogan Turns a Missing-Person Documentary Into Something More Sinister
Beyond Fest 2026 gets underway for us with The Dark Gets In, Sean Hogan’s intriguing blend of mockumentary horror, true-crime aesthetics and supernatural mystery.
At first glance, the setup feels disturbingly familiar.
A young woman disappears, leaving family members, friends and investigators trying to understand what happened to her. Interviews begin filling in the gaps. Questions emerge about the people surrounding her, potential suspects and whether someone she encountered online could have been responsible.
It is the type of story audiences have become accustomed to seeing unfold across countless true-crime documentaries and streaming series.
But The Dark Gets In isn’t particularly interested in remaining inside those familiar boundaries.
As the investigation develops and new clues begin surfacing, the possibility that this is simply another case involving a vulnerable young person and an online predator becomes increasingly difficult to accept. Something else appears to be hiding beneath the disappearance.
And that is where Hogan’s decision to construct the film as a mockumentary becomes its biggest strength.
The format immediately gives The Dark Gets In a sense of familiarity. We know how these documentaries are supposed to look. We recognize the interviews with grieving relatives, the questions directed toward potential suspects and the gradual reconstruction of a missing person’s final days.
Hogan uses that familiarity to his advantage.
Instead of announcing itself immediately as supernatural horror, the film allows the audience to settle into what initially resembles a grounded missing-person documentary. The more comfortable we become with that format, the easier it is for the stranger elements to begin slipping through.
There are shades of the way found-footage horror has historically taken familiar media formats and repurposed them for genre storytelling. The approach reminded me somewhat of films such as Altered, not because the stories are identical, but because of the way a recognizable horror idea can feel different when packaged through another perspective.
That packaging matters here.
The family at the center of The Dark Gets In isn’t presented as extraordinary. Natasha Sullivan, Rory Sullivan and the people surrounding the missing Iceland Sullivan exist within circumstances that could easily belong to an ordinary family in the United Kingdom, the United States or anywhere else.
That normalcy helps sell the documentary illusion.
The questions are the ones audiences would expect. Was there a boyfriend nobody knew about? A teacher? Someone online? Was an adult manipulating her? Was there something happening in her life that her parents simply didn’t see?
Those possibilities give the movie a recognizable true-crime foundation before Hogan begins adding additional layers.
The performances largely serve that format rather than drawing attention to themselves. Charlotte Pike, Cameron Lewis and the rest of the ensemble approach the material with the restraint necessary to maintain the illusion that we’re watching real people discussing an actual disappearance.
Kaiser Cottrell plays Iceland, the missing young woman around whom the mystery develops, while the Sullivan family becomes our primary connection to the increasingly unsettling investigation.
What ultimately impressed me more than any individual character was how convincingly Hogan maintains the documentary presentation.
True-crime programming has developed its own visual and narrative language. Audiences understand the rhythm almost instinctively: interviews, accusations, revelations, conflicting testimony and the gradual suggestion that somebody knows more than they’re admitting.
The Dark Gets In understands that language and uses it as misdirection.
The movie can appeal to viewers fascinated by crime documentaries, missing-person cases, suspicious neighbors and predator investigations while slowly introducing something that pushes the story into supernatural territory.
There is almost a To Catch a Predator familiarity to some of the anxiety surrounding the case, only Hogan eventually takes that grounded fear somewhere much stranger.
That crossover is what makes the movie worth watching.
Had The Dark Gets In been presented as a straightforward supernatural feature, I’m not convinced the underlying mythology would have felt nearly as effective. The mockumentary structure gives Hogan another tool for creating uncertainty because the audience is constantly evaluating what they’re watching as though it were evidence.
What is real?
Who is telling the truth?
What has been overlooked?
And, eventually, are we even investigating the kind of crime we thought we were?
The film runs approximately 90 minutes, which is the right length for this kind of experiment. It has enough time to establish the family, build the investigation and gradually complicate our understanding of the disappearance without stretching the conceit too far.
My biggest issue is the pacing.
The Dark Gets In can be slow, particularly while establishing the grounded portion of its mystery. While that patience ultimately helps the supernatural elements stand apart from everything preceding them, there were moments when I wanted the investigation to move forward with a little more urgency.
Still, everything surrounding the presentation is handled effectively enough that the slower pace never completely derailed the experience.
For our first Beyond Fest review of 2026, The Dark Gets In is an interesting place to start. Hogan takes the visual vocabulary of modern true crime and uses it to disguise something considerably darker underneath.
It isn’t reinventing either mockumentary horror or supernatural storytelling, but the combination gives familiar genre material a fresh enough presentation to make the mystery worth following.
If your streaming history is filled with missing-person documentaries, crime investigations and stories about the dangerous people who might be hiding behind seemingly ordinary lives, The Dark Gets In has an effective hook waiting for you.
Just don’t assume the most obvious suspect is the thing you should be afraid of.
3 out of 5
The Dark Gets In arrives Oct. 2.
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