Loner (2025) Review

Rounding out the Black Sunday Film Festival’s lineup new features was the splendid Loner, a found footage horror that subverts almost every expectation and delivers a thoughtful, surprising and very creepy viewing experience.

Angus (writer/co-director Charlie Robb) is a vlogger on his way to a one-man wilderness retreat, hoping to document his digital detox, but his trek takes him miles from anywhere, and when one night his cabin is set upon by a woman apparently running from something, his adventure takes a disturbing turn. While the setup may seem run-of-the-mill for the subgenre, it is what Robb and co-director Douglas Tawn do with it that makes the film such a fresh approach. Almost entirely a one-man show, we see the slow decline of a protagonist for whom humour and joviality are central defense mechanisms, as he comes to terms with the terror he is facing, and the near-certainty that he may never make it out of the forest.

A measured yet deeply poignant meditation on men’s mental health and fragility, Loner is so bold in its willingness to show a male horror victim who actually feels victimised. By stripping away the standard dynamic of a group of friends turning on each other as things get more desperate, it brings about the more startling prospect of a person turning on himself.

Robb holds the environs of the movie so compellingly, somehow never allowing a movie with only one character to feel dull, repetitive or uneventful. The lack of a traditional villain is another enticing move that prevents a big reveal from derailing the suspense, ensuring the night-time scenes remain as terrifying and unknowable to the audience as they do to Angus.

Not only is Loner a very intense and eerie found footage movie, but it is full of heart, empathy and humanity that is almost unheard of in the subgenre, and runs the gamut of emotions without forgetting to scare us.

Movie Rating:

Loner trailer