STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Philip (Sean Harris) is a disgraced children's entertainer, who has returned to the small town where he grew up, and where his parents died in a housefire. He has come along with a bag, containing a hideous doll, with long, spider legs and a human head. He gets reacquainted with his uncle Maurice (Alun Armstrong), and begins to suffer a series of intense, visual hallucinations that allude to something else. Philip must get to the bottom of it all, after a local schoolboy goes missing.
With the relentless amount of cheap, derivative American horror being released by the barrel-load, it's always encouraging at least when we Brits have a go, even if its done with a significantly smaller budget and much less hysteria. I've always been freaked out by eerie, off putting physical incarnations, that may not pose any imminent threat of harm or death, but just get under your skin, mess with your mind and give you nightmares (The Scream painting being a perfect example!) In Possum, it's some long, winding spider's legs (which anyone who remembers Arachnophobia may already be triggered by!) as well as some other creepy imagery, such as smoky balloons! It's certainly visually unsettling, and creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, it's foundations, though, are sadly just not built strongly enough to hold it together as much as it needs.
It's a film with only two really central characters, the main one played by Sean Harris, who just fits the skin of a role like this perfectly, a wiry, weary looking man, who just embodies a troubled weirdo to a tee. His performance itself is darkly convincing, and he creates a devastating chemistry with Armstrong as the creepy uncle, with whom he shares a troubled history. But, like most else with the film, it's all implied. The plot is driven along by metaphors, and getting the viewer to put two and two together. It's intriguing enough to begin with, but after a while it's all become frustratingly vague, and you're just left scratching your head at its overly cerebral efforts. Even at just under an hour and a half, the plot doesn't have a strong enough base to sustain your attention.
It creates more of an impression than any number of modern American horror films, with their cheap jump scares, CGI and lack of intelligence, but they still have an identifiable beginning, middle and end, and a satisfying resolution. For his next project, debut feature length director Matthew Holness might want to lay back on his faux intellectualism, and concentrate on the surface stuff. ***
Philip (Sean Harris) is a disgraced children's entertainer, who has returned to the small town where he grew up, and where his parents died in a housefire. He has come along with a bag, containing a hideous doll, with long, spider legs and a human head. He gets reacquainted with his uncle Maurice (Alun Armstrong), and begins to suffer a series of intense, visual hallucinations that allude to something else. Philip must get to the bottom of it all, after a local schoolboy goes missing.
With the relentless amount of cheap, derivative American horror being released by the barrel-load, it's always encouraging at least when we Brits have a go, even if its done with a significantly smaller budget and much less hysteria. I've always been freaked out by eerie, off putting physical incarnations, that may not pose any imminent threat of harm or death, but just get under your skin, mess with your mind and give you nightmares (The Scream painting being a perfect example!) In Possum, it's some long, winding spider's legs (which anyone who remembers Arachnophobia may already be triggered by!) as well as some other creepy imagery, such as smoky balloons! It's certainly visually unsettling, and creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, it's foundations, though, are sadly just not built strongly enough to hold it together as much as it needs.
It's a film with only two really central characters, the main one played by Sean Harris, who just fits the skin of a role like this perfectly, a wiry, weary looking man, who just embodies a troubled weirdo to a tee. His performance itself is darkly convincing, and he creates a devastating chemistry with Armstrong as the creepy uncle, with whom he shares a troubled history. But, like most else with the film, it's all implied. The plot is driven along by metaphors, and getting the viewer to put two and two together. It's intriguing enough to begin with, but after a while it's all become frustratingly vague, and you're just left scratching your head at its overly cerebral efforts. Even at just under an hour and a half, the plot doesn't have a strong enough base to sustain your attention.
It creates more of an impression than any number of modern American horror films, with their cheap jump scares, CGI and lack of intelligence, but they still have an identifiable beginning, middle and end, and a satisfying resolution. For his next project, debut feature length director Matthew Holness might want to lay back on his faux intellectualism, and concentrate on the surface stuff. ***