HorRHIFFic 2026: ‘Where Darkness Dwells’ Review
Stars: Tara Perry, Scott Dean, Michael May, Katie Parker, Kara Schaaf, Kenna Wright | Written by Alexandra Grunberg, Michael May | Directed by Michael May
Psychological horror loves a good missing persons case. It’s the perfect narrative trapdoor: send someone looking for answers and watch them fall straight through their own unresolved trauma. That’s very much what drives Where Darkness Dwells, director Michael May’s moody indie noir that begins as an investigative thriller and slowly mutates into something far more unstable.
Trish Bostwick (Tara Perry) is an ambitious reporter stuck producing lightweight YouTube content when she’d clearly rather be chasing hard truths. A recent disappearance gives her the chance to prove herself, leading her to Wentworth – a secluded mental institute with centuries of history and a firm resistance to outside scrutiny. What she expects is rot. What she finds is… order. Clean corridors. Professional staff. A place that appears strangely normal.
And that’s where the unease begins.
Where Darkness Dwells smartly weaponises expectation. When you hear “remote asylum,” you anticipate peeling wallpaper and cackling patients in the shadows. Instead, Wentworth is composed, even welcoming. The horror isn’t in what’s broken, it’s in what feels too intact. That early subversion gives the first act a quiet confidence, allowing Perry’s performance to anchor the creeping sense that something is off long before the film tips its hand.
Then the woods arrive.
Without spoiling specifics, the middle section shifts gears into a stripped-back survival horror that proves to be the film’s most immediately effective stretch. Stranded, disoriented, and possibly not alone, Trish’s journey through the forest delivers the kind of primal unease indie horror often struggles to sustain. Strange sounds, shadowy figures, mechanical failure, it’s textbook “don’t go in the woods,” but executed with conviction. It could almost function as its own short film, so strong is its atmosphere.
From there, Where Darkness Dwells pivots again, leaning hard into psychological territory. Reality fractures. Motives blur. The film begins playing games not just with Trish but with the audience. Is this a conspiracy? Ritual? Trauma manifesting? The answer is less important than the mood – a creeping suggestion that the real horror may be internal.
Not all of it lands cleanly. The final act, while ambitious, doesn’t quite deliver the knockout punch its slow-burn build promises. The thematic threads – trauma, institutional secrecy, creeping madness – are compelling, but the resolution feels slightly less satisfying than the journey getting there. Visually, some sequences dip into murkiness that obscures tension rather than enhancing it.
Still, there’s a confidence here worth applauding. The tonal shifts – investigative noir, survival horror, psychological breakdown – flow more smoothly than they have any right to. You don’t feel the seams. One mode simply bleeds into the next. That structural ambition alone sets the film apart from more formulaic indie fare.
Tara Perry carries the film admirably. Trish’s descent never feels melodramatic; instead, it’s incremental. Curious journalist becomes uneasy outsider, becomes someone unsure of her own perception. It’s a performance that grounds the more abstract elements when the narrative begins to unravel.
Where Darkness Dwells isn’t flawless, but it is engaging. It’s a film that understands horror isn’t just about what’s in the dark — it’s about what happens when you start doubting the light.
***½ 3.5/5
Where Darkness Dwells screened at this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival.
