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Loner – Raindance Film Festival 2025

Reviewer: Richard Maguire

Writer: Charlie Robb

Directors: Charlie Robb and Douglas Tawn

Receiving its world premiere in the Horror Strand of this year’s Raindance Festival, Loner is a smart update of the cabin-in-the-woods genre. On the eve of his 30th birthday and looking for content for his Instagram page, vlogger Angus decides to go off-grid in the Northumbria countryside for a few days with nothing more than some food and a backpack full of cameras. Of course, he discovers that he’s not alone in the forest.

He’s won an online competition, and the prize is a holiday in a cabin miles away from anywhere. Following the instructions provided by Anonymous Retreats, he drives from London, ending up on a barely visible track somewhere in the undergrowth. He’s to leave his car there and make the last part of the journey on foot. He sets up a camera and films himself for his digital audience. We see him heading off into the distance and then stumbling back to fetch his camera.

He’s annoyingly chipper, chatting about nature and adventure, two subjects, it soon becomes apparent, he knows nothing about. It’s probable that he doesn’t have many followers online. At the start of the film, it’s unclear whether we should be laughing at his awful jokes or buying into his pitiful persona. It initially promises to be a long film.

But when things begin to go wrong for him, we start to see the real Angus – or at least who we think is the real Angus. He’s dreadfully lonely, and the film’s subtext delves into the issue of male mental health. It appears that Angus is as isolated in the forest as he is in real life. He listens to his girlfriend’s voicemail on his phone before it runs out of battery.

However, the subject of men’s emotional health is never explored in a heavy-handed manner. After all, Loner is a horror film. He hears weird noises in the middle of the night, a woman comes to knock on his door after dark, and his boots mysteriously vanish. For some reason – never given – Angus decides to stay on in the cabin, even when he’s run out of food and water.

For all of Angus’s faults, writer and co-director Charlie Robb’s portrayal of the loner is in keeping with the way such internet influencers are usually represented in other media. And yet, even if Robb’s Angus does veer into stereotype, by the end it’s impossible not to root for him in his battle against folklore gods. However, this is as far away as you can get from other recent British folk horror films such as Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men or Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Arce. Loner lacks the brooding atmosphere of those two movies.

But there are some scares to be had, and Rebecca Wheeler’s makeup and prosthetics are utterly convincing and horrific. And it’s worth sticking around for co-director Douglas Tawn’s mournful song that accompanies the credits.

Loner is screening at the Raindance Film Festival from 18-27 June.

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The Reviews Hub Film Team is under the editorship of Maryam Philpott.

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