The New Jersey Film Festival is bringing a chilling new voice in horror to Rutgers University this January 31, when Samuel Freeman’s award-winning found footage feature Don’t Look in the Dark makes its Jersey premiere.
Freeman, a longtime genre producer, steps behind the camera for his directorial debut with a film that refuses to play by the usual rules. Recently crowned Best Feature at the Birmingham Horror Film Festival & Convention, Don’t Look in the Dark is designed to be a different experience every time it’s shown, using darkness, distortion, and the theater itself as part of the storytelling.
The film follows Golan and Maya, a couple who venture into the Pinelands National Reserve for a quiet camping trip meant to honor Maya’s late father and prepare for the birth of their child. But as night falls, their phones begin recording on their own, capturing fragments of something moving just beyond the edge of the light. When Maya believes she sees a child in the woods, the pair are drawn deeper into a landscape where perception unravels and escape feels impossible.
Part ghost story, part psychological descent, Don’t Look in the Dark challenges audiences to question not just what they’re seeing—but whether watching is part of the danger.
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
