Dead Northern Short Cuts – The Hold, 305 Fishkill Avenue and What’s in Your Bag?

Lots of great horror films begin in familiar territory. A stranger staying the night, something suspicious happening in the building next door, or even the kind of glossy celebrity video we’ve scrolled past countless times can all become considerably more threatening when reality begins to shift.

That’s where our latest Dead Northern Short Cuts finds its three films. The Hold turns the vulnerability of a new relationship into supernatural horror, 305 Fishkill Avenue follows a man whose attempts to report something sinister are complicated by the apparent non-existence of the place he’s reporting, and What’s in Your Bag? transforms a familiar piece of online celebrity content into something altogether more violent and unpredictable.

Ahead of their screenings at Dead Northern 2026, we spoke to Ashley James Panton, David Mare and Béla Baptiste about the films and their journeys to the festival.

Ashley James Panton – The Hold

A casual hook-up becomes an increasingly sleepless nightmare in The Hold, an exploration of intimacy and vulnerability within gay hook-up culture told through the language of horror.

Commitment-phobe Nathan finds himself stuck with drunken stranger Adrian after he passes out in his bed. Desperate to conceal the horrific night terrors he experiences, Nathan forces himself to remain awake, but sleep deprivation soon begins taking its toll. As strange occurrences escalate and Nathan can no longer fight exhaustion, something far more sinister threatens to emerge.

Who are you and why are you heading to Dead Northern 2026?

I’m Ashley Panton, a Black queer London-based filmmaker with a particular interest in using horror to explore identity, intimacy and social issues. My queer horror short THE HOLD, which I wrote and directed, is screening at Dead Northern 2026.

The film follows Nathan, a commitment-phobe who finds himself facing a long and unsettling night after a hook-up falls asleep in his bed. Nathan suffers from night terrors and is desperate to keep this hidden, forcing himself to stay awake as strange things begin to occur around him.

At its heart, THE HOLD is about intimacy, vulnerability and the fear of allowing someone new to really see you. I wanted to blend the emotional intimacy of films like Weekend and Moonlight with the anxiety and tension of horror films like Insidious and Hereditary.

Tell us about what it was like to be part of this production.

The journey of THE HOLD started with a crowdfunding campaign in March 2023, where we successfully raised the money to get the film made. We then shot over two days in London that October, and as a writer-director it was incredibly special to see words I had written for a short film being performed and brought to life on set for the first time.

Watching the world I had spent so long imagining take shape with the support of our amazing cast and crew was a real highlight, particularly seeing some of the film’s horror elements realised by our incredible make-up team.

One of the most memorable moments was much less glamorous! We filmed on the fifth floor of a creepy former hospital in King’s Cross that was being used as a property guardianship. When the temperamental lift gave out one floor from the top, several of us, myself included, had to carry a 300lb camera dolly up the final flight of stairs.

Definitely one of the most stressful moments of the shoot, but also one I’ll never forget.

Since completing the film, another huge high has been seeing how warmly it has been received by audiences around the world.

What part of seeing your film at Dead Northern are you looking forward to most?

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the screening in person, but one of the things I always look forward to most about festival screenings is experiencing the audience reaction.

It’s really interesting seeing the film play in different cities and different parts of the world and noticing how audiences respond. Do they all laugh at the same moments? Do they jump in the same places? Does one audience react strongly to something that another audience barely noticed? That unpredictability is one of my favourite things about screening a film publicly.

Dead Northern will also be THE HOLD’s first screening in the north of England. Although I was born and raised in London, I went to university in Leeds, so I’m very familiar with the unique Yorkshire wit. I would have loved to have been there to see how a Yorkshire audience responds to the film!

David Mare – 305 Fishkill Avenue

Seeing something suspicious through a neighbouring window is one thing. Convincing anybody else that the building even exists is quite another.

305 Fishkill Avenue follows Oliver, a single father and janitor who becomes convinced that dangerous criminal activity is taking place inside a nearby apartment building. His attempts to protect his daughter and uncover the truth take an increasingly disorientating turn when nobody around him appears to believe the address exists.

Beneath its neo-noir mystery, the short explores mental health, perception and the things those closest to us may be carrying without anyone noticing.

Who are you and why are you heading to Dead Northern 2026?

I, Night Maire, am one of the producers of Ramel Westry’s writer and directorial debut short 305 Fishkill Avenue, in charge of the fifth and final stage of production, distribution.

Tell us about what it was like to be part of this production.

As such, I was onboarded later in the production cycle, and I was not involved in the development of the project, nor was I on set for principal photography, nor was I implicated in the post-production phases of this passion project.

As New Yorkers, Ramel and I connected through our mutual relationships, and I was excited to partner up on a hard-hitting NYC-based story. The story’s setting takes place in New York City, yet you’d never tell it was shot in Los Angeles as Ramel and his production team did an incredible job of scouting locations that would double as the Big Apple.

Our interest in Dead Northern Horror Film Festival stems from the selection of my graduate thesis gothic-gore short film Chateau Sauvignon: terroir, which was nominated for Best Short Film back in 2021.

It was a wonderful experience, the Dead Northern team was welcoming and supportive, and I knew that I wanted to collaborate with them again as soon as possible once I was affiliated with another genre-appropriate film, provided their judging/programming committee was interested in said project, of course.

What part of seeing your film at Dead Northern are you looking forward to most?

We are so grateful to Dead Northern for this selection, and look forward to discovering how the festival’s York-based audiences received our passion project, whether our BIPOC mystery short will captivate, resonate and elicit emotional reactions from the public, as well as if our twist ending will surprise them as intended.

Having previously been involved with the festival, we know our neo-noir thriller is in great company amongst a slate of incredibly strong short horror films, and we are humbled and honoured to be able to contribute to the 2026 programme of Dead Northern’s latest festival edition.

Béla Baptiste – What’s in Your Bag?

The polished world of celebrity content takes a sudden and extremely violent turn in What’s in Your Bag?, a short designed to lure its audience into the comfort of a familiar online format before pulling the rug from beneath them.

An effortlessly charming actress sits down for an innocuous interview centred around the contents of her designer handbag. The expected parade of personal possessions soon gives way to something much more dangerous, turning manufactured intimacy into chaos and confronting the viewer with their own willingness to keep watching.

Who are you and why are you heading to Dead Northern 2026?

I’m Béla Baptiste, a filmmaker and the writer-director of What’s in Your Bag?

I’m thrilled that the film is heading to Dead Northern, although unfortunately I won’t be able to attend in person, since I’ll be in pre-production on my next short, which is very much in the same vein: dark, absurd and interested in turning familiar media formats against themselves.

Tell us about what it was like to be part of this production.

Before cutting the film down for festivals, we set ourselves the challenge of shooting it as one uninterrupted eight-minute take! …and we actually pulled it off.

That was probably the biggest high of the production: watching the whole thing unfold continuously, with everyone having to be completely locked in.

It was also amazing seeing Dolly Lewis, who not only stars in the film but produced it with me, throw herself so completely into the performance. Maybe all the rage in the short was secretly just an outlet for the stress of producing it… haha!

The biggest low was probably one of our practical effects. We had a special-effects body made specifically for the shoot, but during testing we realised it wasn’t going to work quite as convincingly as we had hoped.

Rather than abandoning the idea, the whole team collaborated and came up with a practical solution on set. That problem-solving spirit ended up being one of the most memorable parts of making the film.

What part of seeing your film at Dead Northern are you looking forward to most?

I’m most curious to see how audiences respond to a film that doesn’t offer a completely clear narrative or tell them exactly what to think. There’s a tendency, especially with online content, for ideas to be served in a very pre-digested way, with meaning and intention made immediately obvious.

At the same time, I think more and more audience members are storytellers themselves, or at least increasingly aware of the rules of storytelling. I find that exciting! It means you can trust people to fill in the gaps, make their own connections and create their own reasoning around what they’ve seen, rather than just consuming a story passively.

That kind of active relationship with an audience is probably what I’m most interested in seeing with What’s in Your Bag?

Whether we’re navigating new relationships, looking through a neighbour’s window or consuming the carefully packaged intimacy of celebrity culture, there are unwritten rules that tell us roughly what to expect. Horror has considerably more fun when those rules stop working.

The Hold, 305 Fishkill Avenue and What’s in Your Bag? each begin with something their audiences can recognise before introducing doubt about where the story is taking them, or even whether what they’re seeing can be trusted.

For a festival audience experiencing them together in the dark, discovering exactly when that familiarity gives way to something stranger is all part of the fun.

More filmmakers from the Dead Northern 2026 shorts programme will join us in the next Dead Northern Short Cuts.