‘Loner’ Heads to York With Charlie Robb for Dead Northern Q&A

Charlie Robb’s found-footage folk horror Loner is heading to York later this month, bringing its uneasy mix of isolation, dark comedy and ancient woodland menace to Dead Northern Horror Film Festival following a run that has already earned the film Best Film and Best Actor at Black Sunday Film Festival.

The film screens at City Screen Picturehouse on Friday 25 September, with Robb attending for a post-screening Q&A. Co-directed by Robb and Douglas Tawn, Loner centres on Angus Mattock, an aspiring vlogger who heads into the British wilderness for a digital detox and soon discovers that switching off from the modern world may have brought him dangerously close to something much older.

Robb also stars as Angus, carrying much of the film himself as the character’s initially comic self-confidence begins to erode. What starts as a deliberately awkward take on online self-presentation gradually turns towards psychological horror, with the forest becoming as important to the film as the man trapped inside it.

The filmmakers built the project around a deliberately small-scale production. Loner was shot with a skeleton crew in remote locations across Britain, including forests in Norfolk and Northumbria, with the latter chosen in part for its links to the region’s Celtic past. Robb and Tawn also spent hours searching woodland for the isolated cave used in the film, avoiding more accessible locations in favour of somewhere that genuinely felt cut off from the outside world.

That setting feeds directly into the film’s central concerns. Robb has spoken about using Angus to explore isolation, masculinity and mental health without turning those ideas into an overt message, instead allowing them to sit beneath the surface of a survival story about a man gradually losing control of both his surroundings and himself.

The film’s influences range from obvious found-footage touchstones such as The Blair Witch Project and Creep to British comedy including Alan Partridge and The Office. Robb has also cited The Zone of Interest as an influence on how Loner builds fear through suggestion, sound and framing rather than relying on constant visual shocks.

Since its Black Sunday appearance, Loner has also enjoyed a sold-out US premiere at Panic Fest in Kansas City. With distribution secured and further ROBBTAWN projects already in development, the Dead Northern screening gives UK audiences another chance to catch Robb and Tawn’s debut feature on the big screen before its wider release.

Loner screens at Dead Northern Horror Film Festival at City Screen Picturehouse, York, on Friday 25 September 2026 at 7.30pm, followed by an exclusive Q&A with Charlie Robb. Get your tickets from the Dead Northern site, or below:
deadnorthern.co.uk/

Loner trailer trailer