They Wait In The Dark is a locally-produced haunted house film that breaks through trauma cycles

Brinklee Wynn as young Amy in They Wait In The Dark. // Courtesy of Meagan Flynn

They Wait In The Dark, released in Feb. 2023, is a unique haunted house film comprising a cast and local KC crew that keeps you on your toes until the end.

Directed by Patrick Rea and produced by Meagan Flynn—who also acts in the film—the story opens with Amy (Sarah McGuire) and her 8-year-old adopted son Adrian (Patrick McGee) sleeping on the floor of a gas station. Amy is sporting a burner phone and a wicked cut on her ribcage, sparking questions about what they’re running from.

Upon getting into Amy’s hometown, they run into one of Amy’s childhood friends, Jenny (Paige Maria), who gives Amy and Adrian a lift to Amy’s abandoned childhood home and serves as their sole connection to the outside world throughout the film. The house is already giving off some eerie vibes, given that it seems to look pretty much the same as it did when it was abandoned, but the creep factor is upped when Jenny tells Amy that people have broken into the house to use it for séances.

It’s also revealed here that Amy and Adrian are running from Amy’s abusive ex, Judith (Laurie Catherine Winkel). There’s a scene shortly afterward that shows Judith at a gas station, out looking for Amy and Adrian, stabbing a man with a knife after he sexually harasses her—which makes you realize that Judith is a force to be reckoned with, while also sort of rooting for her as a sort of feminist anti-hero.

While looking around the house, Amy finds the séance materials in the basement, and she instructs Adrian not to go down there. However, being a kid, he waits until Amy is asleep to do the exact opposite. He lights the candles, summoning an evil presence into the house.

The remainder of the film shows the evil presence terrorizing Amy and Adrian as Judith closes in on them from the outside, keeping them basically trapped. It also elicits flashbacks of Amy’s mother (Meagan Flynn) being abusive toward her as a child (Brinklee Wynn), leading Amy to believe that she is inflicting revenge on her. Amy becomes more volatile throughout the film and loses her temper on Adrian with increasing frequency and intensity—planting seeds of doubt about who the real villain is. Though it points to Amy not quite being who she seems, a shocking twist near the end reveals a far more sinister reason behind the haunting of the house.

Sarah McGuire as Amy. // courtesy of Meagan Flynn

Flynn approached Rea about making the film back in Nov. 2020, and they decided on the haunted house theme because they had a small budget and a location-bound story would be easier to execute well with what they had. Rea finished the script by Dec. 2020, which he wrote with lead actress McGuire in mind as he knew he wanted her to play Amy. This makes sense, as McGuire shines in the film, both fooling us into seeing Amy as the victim initially and convincing us she’s one of the villains by the end.

“I love psychology, and I love just figuring out where a character is coming from, what have they been through in the past,” says McGuire. “And so knowing that Amy has been through quite a bit of trauma in childhood and things like that, you know, doing research pulling from my own much more mild traumas in my childhood, and then figuring out how that would essentially carry over into adulthood. So, the fact that Amy thinks—she’s one of the people that I would probably consider very ignorant as to all of her mental issues and what have you, so everything that she does, she does under the guise of, ‘I’m doing this for you,’ for Adrian, ‘I’m trying to do better for you,’ while everything in reality is very, very selfish.”

McGuire also had a great relationship with McGee behind the scenes, which simultaneously made it even harder for her to act out the scenes where she would lose her cool on Adrian and easier because of the understanding between the two of them.

“That kid is the cutest, sweetest, funniest guy, and so having to look him in the eyes and just scream at him or shake him really hard or something like that,” McGuire says of the most difficult part of playing Amy. “He knew it was acting—he would immediately come over and give me a big old hug afterward and say, ‘That was great. Let’s do it again.’”

Patrick McGee as Adrian. // courtesy of Meagan Flynn

One problem with most of these movies is that the audience wonders why the characters don’t hightail it out of the house, given that it’s the most obvious solution to their problems. Rea wanted to make a haunted house film that didn’t have this issue. He was inspired by Poltergeist, which also informed his decision not to use any CGI and to instead stick to camera tricks, sound effects, and makeup—which were used effectively in the film and didn’t appear too cheap or fake.

“I think that makes it feel more real because I’ll watch a movie, and I’ll be really into it, and the second they start using computer-animated effects, I check out,” says Rea.

The conflict with Judith was intended to keep Amy and Adrian from leaving the house, which it does as they don’t have access to a car and would be exposed out in the open by attempting to leave on foot. However, it’s left up in the air why Amy would choose her abandoned childhood home as her hideout in the first place since Judith would probably know where Amy is from and be able to track them down, not to mention it’s the site of the trauma that fucked her up. 

Rea and Flynn were lucky to find the house used in the film, located just outside Topeka. Rea knew the owners, and no one lived in the house then. The state of the house in the film is almost exactly as it was when they first found it, with just enough cleaning up beforehand to ensure the crew was safe. Filming occurred over just 12 days during the pandemic, some of those days being overnighters.

Amy and Adrian on the run. // courtesy of Meagan Flynn

Considering how quickly everything came together, it’s very impressive. One downfall of the short timeline is that it shows in the dialogue, especially Judith’s. It felt like the film was trying too hard to convince us she was the villain to make the subsequent twists seem more shocking, and in doing so, had the opposite effect. It isn’t a reflection of Winkel’s performance—she did well with what she was given and sold Judith as being a bad bitch, if not the villain of the story.

However, while haunted house movies are infamous for not having much in the way of a nuanced plot, this film does. The storyline is easy to follow while still keeping you guessing, and it has an ending that sends an impactful message about familial trauma.

“For me, the film was about ending the cycle of abuse,” says Rea. “And that was kind of my theme when I was writing it, you know, and how abuse can continue with the cycle.”

It’s impossible to reveal how the film accomplishes this without spoiling the ending, so you’ll just have to watch it—certainly worthwhile.

They Wait In The Dark is available on Crackle for free.