‘The Dark Gets In’ Teaser Turns True Crime Into Supernatural Dread Ahead of Beyond Fest

Sean Hogan’s The Dark Gets In follows a documentary investigation into a teenager’s unexplained disappearance that takes a supernatural turn.

‘The Dark Gets In’ Teaser Turns a Missing-Person Investigation Into Supernatural Dread Ahead of Beyond Fest

A seemingly impossible disappearance leads a documentary crew somewhere far more sinister in The Dark Gets In, the new hybrid mock-documentary horror film from writer-director Sean Hogan.

Blue Finch Films has released the teaser ahead of the film’s world premiere at Beyond Fest on Oct. 2 at the Los Feliz 3, offering an early look at a story that combines the familiar language of true-crime documentaries with slow-burning supernatural horror.

https://youtu.be/dff1KXyTWzI?si=s-7G7ivjuBBHOl4l

The Dark Gets In centers on the disappearance of teenager Aisling, who vanishes from her home one night without an apparent explanation. A documentary crew begins investigating the case, but the evidence only makes the mystery more difficult to understand.

Security footage shows nobody entering or leaving the house, while potential leads uncovered during the police investigation repeatedly reach dead ends.

What initially resembles a familiar missing-person case takes a more disturbing turn when a witness identifies the investigation’s primary suspect as her long-dead brother.

That revelation shifts the documentary away from conventional explanations and toward the possibility that whatever happened to Aisling may have a supernatural origin.

For her grieving family, the question consequently becomes something more frightening than whether Aisling survived. As the investigation continues, they are forced to consider whether death might not be the worst possible explanation for her disappearance.

Hogan uses the structure of a mock true-crime documentary to approach the supernatural mystery, combining interviews, investigative material and documentary-style footage as the filmmakers themselves move deeper into the case.

The approach continues Hogan’s exploration of uncanny and genre storytelling while using the recognizable presentation of contemporary true-crime programming to establish the film’s central mystery.

Charlotte Pyke, Cameron Lewis, Scott Burchell and Kezia Cotterell star.

Hogan wrote and directed The Dark Gets In, with Evrim Ersoy producing. Paul Goodwin, Nick Harwood, Jim Hinson, Mike Chapman and Fatima Hayward serve as executive producers. Goodwin and Hinson handled cinematography.

The film arrives at Beyond Fest following a format designed to blur the distinction between documentary investigation and supernatural fiction, allowing what begins as a recognizable missing-person story to gradually move into increasingly unexplained territory.

The Dark Gets In will hold its world premiere at Beyond Fest on Friday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Los Feliz 3.