Written by Charlie Robb and co-directed by Robb and Douglas Tawn, the 2025 Loner is a found-footage folk horror film about a man called Angus (played by Robb) who heads out into the Northumbrian woods to vlog about “living off the land” – totally cut off from the modern world (no wi-fi, for instance). It should be noted, though, that the cabin he’s renting, advertised as an “Anonymous Retreat,” has plenty of mod cons, and he’s not exactly roughing it. That’s probably a good thing, as Angus’s efforts to film himself “living off the land” turn out to be rather comically incompetent, such as when he attempts to instruct his viewers on how to build a wilderness shelter (which isn’t a shelter) and in which he then gets hopelessly trapped.
Nature isn’t the worst of Angus’s problems, however, as he encounters increasingly strange and disturbing things. On his way into the woods, he runs across what seems to be a buried Celtic marker and a strange white rock. But then later, while he’s recording ambient forest sound, he hears a grunting and someone sobbing and whimpering. That night, a woman whom he had passed in the forest on his trek in bangs on the door of his cabin begging to be let in, screaming that she’s in danger. Angus won’t let her in – too terrified to help her, even though the woman – Eve (Kat Johns-Burke) – does not seem at all threatening. This isn’t a choice you usually see characters make in films, but Angus’s character has been developed enough at this point in the film that the choice seems believable, true to him.
