A televisual obsession gets out of control in a creepy, neon-drenched feature from Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To The World’s Fair). This horror-adjacent, semi-Lynchian offering is an intense, impressive exploration of a pair of increasingly disturbed psyches that pays homage to cult TV and acknowledges the strange effect it can have on us.

Beginning in 1996 and spanning several decades, it follows loner Owen (played by Ian Foreman in his younger years and Justice Smith as an older teen/adult). After an encounter with the similarly alienated Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) at an after-hours school event, Owen becomes hooked on a young adult fantasy series called The Pink Opaque. So enamoured are the pair with this budget spin on shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Charmed that it’s in danger of becoming their new reality. Till’s Danielle Deadwyler appears as Owen’s ailing mum Brenda, with Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst his fearsome dad Frank.

Smith and Lundy-Paine have a nice line in deadpan teen angst and I Saw The TV Glow has been realised by Schoenbrun with darkly ethereal style, as it celebrates VHS culture and investigates an all-consuming, potentially sanity-surrendering fixation. There are nods to the aforementioned Buffy, in the form of a cameo and The Pink Opaque’s credits font, while the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness is another 90s touchpoint. If the film sometimes threatens to get bogged down in its moodiness, there’s enough irreverence and self-awareness to deliver some chinks of much-needed light.

I Saw The TV Glow is screening at Picturehouse Central, London, Friday 7–Sunday 9 June, as part of the Sundance Film Festival.