Before movies ever felt like a career path, they felt like a kind of magic for Chris Messineo. Growing up, Messineo believed the people who made films lived somewhere far away on the West Coast, in a world that felt unreachable. It wasn’t until his twenties, as independent film began flourishing outside of Hollywood, that filmmaking started to feel like a possibility.

“I loved movies long before I thought it was something I could do as a career,” Messineo says. “I always knew I loved writing, but I hadn’t found the perfect form yet.” An English major in college, Messineo spent years writing poetry, short stories, and even a novel, searching for the medium that fit best. The realization came unexpectedly, at 26, when he discovered a book on screenwriting at a local bookstore. “It hadn’t occurred to me that movies were written first,” he admits. “That was the epiphany—realizing there’s one person who writes the story, and then everyone else comes in to collaborate.”

That discovery would eventually lead to The Strange Dark, Messineo’s debut feature film, which was released on streaming services on January 16. A science-fiction thriller, the film follows Susan as she must decide who to trust—her husband, who claims he can see the future, or the peculiar people suddenly at her door. Although the movie is new, its origins stretch back more than a decade.

Messineo keeps a writing journal where every idea, no matter how small, gets written down. “A title, a character, a bit of dialogue,” he explains. “About 15 years ago, I wrote: ‘A man comes home from work and tells his wife, “I don’t do for a living what you think I do. We’re in danger. We have to leave now.”’ At the time, I had no idea what he was running from or where they were going. I just thought it was an interesting moment.”

Years later, that moment resurfaced. While walking his dog late one night and gazing up at the stars, Messineo began to imagine what that man might have been hiding. That moment became the spark that grew into The Strange Dark.

But the inspirations for The Strange Dark extend further than that night. From his love of video games to childhood tales, Messineo has incorporated his real life into his fictional world. “I love video games, particularly Portal and Half-Life,” Messiano says. “They exist in an X-Files–type world, where secret corporations are conducting experiments on things we don’t fully understand.”

He continued, “The only biographical thing in the movie is the two teenagers being in a home when they weren’t supposed to be. That happened to me when I was a teenager. I was the boy who wasn’t supposed to be there, so that was a moment that sneaks into my movie.”

Those influences helped shape the world of the film, but it wasn’t until casting began that the story truly came into focus. Although Messineo created these characters in his head, his vision of them did not interfere with his casting process, as over 4,000 actors submitted for the seven parts in the film. “It took three months for the whole casting process to look at all of those reels, auditions, and self-tapes and bring all those people in person and do chemistry reads,” he says.

The cast that ultimately came together is one Messineo speaks about with immense pride: “There would be these moments when we were shooting and [an actor] would say things to me like, ‘I don’t think my character would do this,’ which is really cool. Even though I wrote the character, and I’m directing it, you have an actor who is taking so much ownership of this part that they are now telling you what the character would and wouldn’t do. It sounds like that’s a battle, but that is actually the best kind of battle because now you know they are really becoming that person.”

The Strange Dark was filmed over the course of 20 days—two days of rehearsal followed by 18 days of shooting, spread across five-day workweeks with a 50-person crew. Though the shoot itself was brief, the film underwent a year of pre-production and a year of post-production before making its way onto the film festival circuit.

“I’ve seen the film over 100 times, and it’s played at 27 film festivals over the past year,” Messineo says. “I’ve seen parts of the country I would have never seen before.” The Strange Dark has screened internationally and across the United States, with stops in England, California, Boston, Florida, and beyond.

But watching the film alongside audiences wasn’t always easy. “At first, it was really hard to watch, because all I could see were the things I wished I could do differently,” he confesses. “Then I started to enjoy it—and really enjoy the audience’s reaction to it. Now, I can watch it and appreciate the things that are working, the things that are kind of beautiful, and the parts I’m genuinely proud of. I’m at peace with the things I wasn’t able to do.”

The film’s success was built long before it ever reached audiences. Before the film came to fruition, Messineo was building a foundation as an educator. He founded and taught at NJ Film School, where he worked with aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters eager to bring their ideas to life. “I love writing, I love filmmaking, and I love sharing that knowledge with the next generation,” Messineo says. “Being a teacher makes me want to be a better artist.”

That commitment to teaching carried directly into the making of The Strange Dark. More than 90 percent of the film’s crowdfunding came from Messiano’s former students, showing a testament not only to the community he built but to the trust he earned along the way.

“When I made The Strange Dark, it wasn’t because there was some hidden message or a desire to change people’s lives,” Messineo says. “It’s not me sharing some secret with the world type of thing, it’s a throwback to the films I loved growing up. I just wanted audiences to have fun and enjoy it, while also recognizing how much craft went into making it.”

Now, watching the film feels like opening a time capsule. It carries him back to the days spent on set, the behind-the-scenes stories, and the collective effort that brought it to life. More than anything, Messineo looks back on The Strange Dark with pride, as it is an accumulation of many people’s talents coming together to realize a dream years in the making.

The Strange Dark is now available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.

Interviewed on January 8, 2026