A documentary team sets out to tell the unsolved story of the missing beloved, fifteen-year-old Aisling “Ash” Sullivan (Kezia Cotterrell), who disappeared on September 12, 2024, but they get more than what they bargain for when one possible theory cannot be the logical choice yet seems plausible based on what they uncovered during January 2025. “The Dark Gets In” (2026) is the rare fake documentary meets found footage that looks high quality, sports an engrossing story, features likable characters, and introduces convincing supernatural elements in a compact ninety-one minutes. Writer and director Sean Hogan’s true crime pseudo-documentary is a must see for fans of the genre and horror lovers.
Divided into seven chapters, “The Dark Gets In” consists of exclusive interviews with the missing girl’s family, the police investigator, her only friend, Samena “Sam” Bellamy (Farah Ashraf), talking head experts, a psychic, a teacher, Peter Carnes (Harry Roebuck), and a possible credible witness, Patricia Kruse (Holle De Jong). Besides the documentary production team’s interviews, there are the usual blurry recreations, the establishing location shots, evocative shots of the forest, Ash’s video diaries, Tik Toks, cell phone footage recorded on interviewees phones, newspaper archives, sketches from books, and so much more. Hogan clearly is a fan of the genre and proves that imitation is the truest form of flattery. A lot of people try to imitate this genre but cannot stick the landing. Thanks to coeditor and co-cinematographer Paul Goodwin, co-cinematographer James Hinson, coeditor Nick Harwood, the drone operator, and the location scouts, the fictional film looks like the real deal. While watching the film, movie goers will have moments when they completely forget that they are watching a work of fiction. Not since the “Zodiac Killer Project” (2025) has a film examined the genre and critiqued it except in this case, in a less overt way.
Mixing documentaries with found footage elicits a specific pleasure from other subgenres of horror. It produces the vicarious thrill of witnessing danger and verifying sensational, unbelievable stories without putting yourself in danger. Some of the joy is critiquing the people in the movie for putting themselves in danger, but even though those moments exist, not one soul in the audience will dare to exult in a this (fictional) family’s mystery. The acting is phenomenal, and the cast becomes their characters. Natasha (Charlotte Pyke), Ash’s mother, and Rory (Cameron Lewis), Ash’s father, represent opposing reactions to their daughter’s disappearance. Natasha is willing to go down any road and turn over any rock while Rory feels as if people are taking advantage of his wife, and no constructive progress has been made in the search for their daughter. He critiques the local psychic, Laila Merryweather (Julie Boyle), but his list of vultures feasting on their misery grows as he learns the documentary’s crew sensational spin on the story. This theme becomes important once the supernatural is introduced, and the horror becomes a metaphor for how others take advantage of vulnerable families. Owen (Scott Burchell), Ash’s brother, does not participate in the tug of war for meaning,
The first act is a hagiography of Ash which is revised as new information gets discovered, such as her alter ego, Alice, complete with dressing up like Alice in Wonderland and appearing online in that persona. The outfit could not even be described as a sexy Halloween version and is fairly tame, but location, location, location. A teenage girl on the Internet is the equivalent of fresh meat in a piranha tank. DI George Sweet (Russell Barnett), the chief investigating officer, and Dr. Alana Aichman (Nicki Hobday), a child psychologist, offer theories regarding what Ash was up to, especially considering that she came from a loving home, but they have zero definitive answers. As “The Dark Gets In” unfolds, the proponents of supernatural theories are featured more prominently than the rational voices, but if there was a Venn diagram of commonality, it is the connection between the March 1987 murder of twelve-year-old Millie Dietrich (Kelly White) with Ash’s disappearance. Hogan underexplores crucial differences between the two girls’ fates: Millie was found, and her family’s ensuing recovery are never compared with the Sullivans. It is underexplored why anyone would target the Sullilvans based on such a thin connection, and there is nothing like revenge as motivation for a decades old link.
Laila is the chief proponent of the supernatural, complete with a cell phone recording of doing a reading on Ash with glitches in the video during their talk, but her first theory is a miss, not a hit. Once the correct supernatural suspect is introduced, it was easy to guess which creature from folklore was the culprit, Ivan Drewitt (Craig Hamilton) or user name the Knave of Hearts. James Swanton as Dr. Evan Westfall, a folklorist, runs away with the movie tucked under his arm as he spouts not often heard theories about the popular mythical creature. Swanton is a fixture in horror films, but he often plays the creature and does not get lines as The Beast in “The Severed Sun” (2024), the Jackal in “The First Omen” (2024), and a couple of the images on cards come to life on “Tarot” (2024). What a delight to discover that he is more than the backbone of creature features, but ready for the talkies. Westfall is the image and voice of the classic academic making the fantastical sound plausible. He even reads an excerpt from actual books about the subject. Get a load of how he says Rhode Island. It is the best!
Some mysteries are better left unsolved, but the family is also afraid of losing what they have without answers. As the supernatural begins to make actual guest appearances during the found footage segments, the foreboding builds, and it recalls the concept behind “The Vanishing” (1988). “The Dark Gets In” could have started to falter when it was time to bust out the special effects. They did not choke. It looked and sounded real. More importantly, found footage tends to suddenly get jumpy or blurry when it is time to memorialize the creature on film, but is otherwise high definition and colorful any other time. Not here! The creature is ready for their close up. When they disappear, it is equally as convincing.
If there was one unbelievable element in “The Dark Gets In,” it is that Sam, who appears to be British Pakistani, would be allowed to hang out unfettered with Ash, participate in the documentary and capture her own proof of the supernatural without her parents at least appearing once onscreen and chewing out the people working on the documentary. People from the global majority are far more conservative and protective of their children before teenage girls are going missing.
“The Dark Gets In” did not quite stick the landing when it attempts to tie it into ripped from the headlines current events. I love any opportunity to call out violence against girls and women and throw shade against Presidon’t, but it dates the movie and does not blend well with the classic monster. It feels tagged on and was not threaded throughout the story. The story should have stayed intimate and restricted to the human-interest story.
If you love found footage, pseudo documentaries, true crime and a remix of a vintage horror staple character, “The Dark Gets In” is for you. If you are not into it, but are looking for an entry into any aspect of the subject that sounds appealing, follow your instincts and let this movie in.
