The White Lady of St. John's Road (2026)

A short, unsettling descent into the unknown. Dean Ferris’s new short film follows a young man walking down the titular urban street and towards an encounter that he won’t forget. Shot in black and white, the film sets an instant and effective atmosphere, with the opening shot slowly descending onto St. John’s Road itself, with parked cars on either side, and a slim-looking opening down its centre. It feels like we’re dropping into something we can’t escape, and it brings to mind a descent made by the assassin in Phil Tippett’s masterful Mad God (2021), slowly approaching a hellish landscape.

And the supernatural being on display in Ferris’s short wouldn’t look out of place in Tippett’s world, or indeed Damien Leone’s Terrifier series (2016-2024). But before the young man hits trouble directly, we’re treated to some static jittering of light as we witness a shot of a house. As a figure is spotted in a window, you’re immediately reminded of James Watkins’ The Woman in Black (2012), a ghost story that, although shot in colour, used a black-and-white palette that was hauntingly effective. And The White Lady of St. John’s Road achieves a similar sense of unease, particularly recalling David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) and Lost Highway (1997) in particular.

The film holds back its main horror until the finale, building tension over a couple of minutes and saving the real horror for its final shot. Even when the young man spots the house in which evil potentially lies, evoking imagery from Michael Haneke’s Hidden (2005), it’s all about the suggestion of horror rather than the constant jump scare nonsense that we’re so used to. And just like Lynch, Ferris leaves his film open ended; we might assume the fate of the man, but does the film’s initial physical descent really represent a lowering into hell, or a slow downward journey into a dreamworld? It might be clear-cut in Ferris’s mind, but he’s done a very good job of unnerving his audience into worrying about just what exactly is unfurling here. ★★★★ 8.0/10