Possum (2018)

Possum is the feature length directorial debut of writer and actor Matthew Holness. I've been a big fan of Holness' work for years now - not just Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace but his previous directorial efforts like A Gun For George and The Snipist - and, as a result, I wasn't as thrown by his choice to play things so ickily straight as he does here as others who are only familiar with his spoof (but admittedly dark) comedy may have been. Possum is as creepy as fuck, but I think I'll need to watch this one again to gain a proper, greater appreciation of it.

The retro aesthetic he has always favoured, photographed with such bleak accuracy by Kit Fraser, conjures up memories of many a classic '70s PIF or horror film, and it's hard to determine just what period this film is actually set in, or indeed whether it is all set/occurring in his protagonist's Philip (played by Sean Harris with the usual gaunt and mumbling intensity) head, which is stunted to say the least. The unnerving score from the (BBC) Radiophonic Workshop also fixes the action to a bygone time that believed bright oranges and shit browns to be compatible, recalling as it does the classic era of Doctor Who, but Holness' decision to let scenes play out with little or no dialogue is also reminiscent of various expressionistic silent movies of the 1920s and '30s too.

Unfortunately these sequences can appear a little repetitive, making Possum feel rather aimless, or worse, revealing the roots of its short story origins being adapted to a full length feature. Whilst this feature is only 80 or so minutes I would imagine some restless audiences may easily tire of Harris' many wanderings of East Anglia's urban scrubland. Whilst I can appreciate the cyclical nature of the protagonist's actions from a psychological viewpoint it's worth saying that I quickly guessed the metaphorical nature of Philip's angst and concerns almost straight off the bat, so that even I, with some considerable goodwill, found the playing out of it all a little one-note. 

As the film is essentially a two-hander between Harris and a grubby, leering Alun Armstrong, this also means that there's little respite to be had here either and a desire for a long shower afterwards may be the common consensus for most viewers. Nevertheless, Possum relishes in its ability to find intelligent scares from its Freudian psychology and, in its creation of the 'possum' puppet itself, delivers something truly unsettling and nightmarish. Whilst I'm not convinced, on this first watch at least, that Possum is a success, I cannot find fault in Holness' desire to at least try something different and applaud such an experimental nature from a debut feature-length director.