Don’t Look in the Dark Brings Found Footage Horror to Rutgers This January

The found footage feature Don’t Look in the Dark will screen at Rutgers University on January 31, 2026, as part of the New Jersey Film Festival. The screening marks the New Jersey premiere of the film and the directorial debut of genre producer Samuel Freeman.

Set during a camping trip gone wrong, Don’t Look in the Dark follows a couple whose phones begin recording without their knowledge as night falls in the Pinelands National Reserve. What starts as fragmented audio and video gradually captures something neither of them expected, pulling the pair deeper into the woods as their sense of perception begins to fracture.

The film previously screened at the Birmingham Horror Film Festival & Convention, where Freeman received the Best Feature award. Freeman has described the project as an attempt to rethink how found footage functions in a theatrical setting, emphasizing that each screening may reveal different details depending on the environment and the audience’s attention.

Don’t Look in the Dark at New Jersey Film Festival:

Festival & Screening Details

7:00 PM, January 31, 2026

Voorhees Hall #105, Rutgers University

71 Hamilton Street,

New Brunswick, NJ 08901