Possum (2018)

directed by Matthew Holness
UK
85 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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Some horror movies have a dark ambiance about them that only climaxes into something concretely frightening during one or two select scenes, the rest of the runtime simply being filled with shadows and melancholy. Possum somehow manages to be creepy like that from pretty much beginning to end. It took me a minute or two to get into it, because it's not huge on being clear about what's happening and that's confusing sometimes, but once it "clicked" for me, it instantly drew me in. There's no light or happiness anywhere in this, except when it occurs in the lives of other people, such as the boys the main character sees joking around on the train. Every minute of this film has both the viewer and the main character trapped in a hole with no escape. And there's something in the hole with us.

The title comes from a puppet belonging to the main character. I should probably put "puppet" in quotes because I really got the feeling that this was something awful pretending at being a puppet. Since, like I said, we have very little backstory on exactly what happened prior to the beginning of the film, the origins of the puppet-thing are murky and it feels more like something that's just always been there, not something that was built. I have to give the movie props for making me go from disappointed that the monster was so funny-looking to absolutely terrified of it, dreading its appearance around every corner and having to avert my eyes sometimes. When it was onscreen I wanted it to be offscreen.

Another thing I give this movie props for is taking something as gruesome, dim, and grimy as the main character's life and still managing to make it into a source of sympathy by the end. When we find out the full extent of his stepfather's abuse in the final few minutes of the film, so much about the rest of it seems to make a little more sense: The rhyme that warns Possum will "eat and smother any child without a mother", as well as other rhymes about the fearsomeness of this puppet-beast, reflect on the main character's own feelings of vulnerability surrounding being an orphan. Even the puppet's exaggerated, spiderlike limbs suggest fingers; this will also make sense in the (highly upsetting) last couple of minutes.

I don't think the presence of real-life horrors took away from the possibly metaphysical aspect of this at all. It's so heavy on the dread and terror that ultimately whether or not the whole thing was a product of the protagonist's trauma felt incidental. The trauma in itself was horror enough. The ever-present soundtrack by The Radiophonic Workshop completes the whole thing. I hope we get a real release of that soundtrack sometime soon but I'm doubtful.