Black As Sin

POSSUM (2018)

Designed by Sydney-based Odd Studios, the titular creature is based on writer/director Matthew Holness' fear of spiders. After an original head had a more goblin-like design, found to be too emotive, a sculpture of lead actor Sean Harris lead to a blankness - similar to the Michael Myers visage - where viewers could project their own fears.

THE feature directorial debut of Matthew Holness, POSSUM is an expansion of his short story from The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease. Comma Press had the writers read Freud's theory of the uncanny, then asked them to choose a fear and provide a story (Holness combined two, doppelgängers and dummies). The film sees puppeteer Philip (Sean Harris) returning to his childhood home where his uncle Maurice (Alun Armstrong) has been living for some time, who raised him after the death of his parents. The haunted Philip revisits places significant to his formative years, as he attempts to understand the past and rid himself of his unnerving puppet, a spider with a human head and a thousand yard stare.

POSSUM draws on silent expressionist horror and English Gothic, especially THE INNOCENTS. Jack Clayton's adaptation of The Turn of the Screw shares a lot of POSSUM's foundation, namely an inherent sadness through problematic sexual awakening. This examination of trauma is expertly brought to live by performance and fractured narrative, and even the surrounding forest - with its warped branches - symbolise spindly spider legs (when Maurice attacks at the climax, he puts his fingers into Philip's mouth, providing a further nod to arachnid digits). Another plus is the score by The Radiophonic Workshop, marking the studio's first soundtrack purposely constructed for a feature film. Actually more a sound design for mental anguish, pieces include unreleased material by Delia Derbyshire.

The muted hues of POSSUM mirror the houses and surroundings of the grimmist 1970s Public Information Films. Here, Philip's visit to a school manifests into the "Stranger Danger" aesthetic.

Philip has never recovered from a corrupted innocence, with his monosyllabic speech and movement reminiscent of childlike mannerisms and anxieties. Even the rhyme, "Mother, Father, what’s afoot? Only Possum, black as soot et al," lovingly illustrated in a sketchbook, bridges the simplicity of youth to his adult existence. Harris would remain in character throughout the shoot to the point where Holness felt that he was working with Philip rather than Harris. Both lead actors only interacted with each other while filming scenes together, further enhancing the feeling of separation and tension.

Short Cuts (Part III of III)

A GUN FOR GEORGE (2011)

PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS - THE SNIPIST (2012)
COMEDY SHORTS - SMUTCH (2016)

Payback doesn't come harder-boiled than Terry 

Finch (Matthew Holness) in A GUN FOR GEORGE.

THE three shorts under consideration here are all written and directed by Matthew Holness, best known for creating the faux horror author Garth Marenghi (a character so pompous that when he contemplates praying, he prays to himself). Made by Warp in conjunction with Film4 and the UK Film Council, A GUN FOR GEORGE is a gritty change of pace for Holness, who also stars as Terry Finch, an unsuccessful writer of pulp-fiction crime novels. Via flashback, it's shown that his twin brother George was killed by carjackers. Living in a caravan near a power station, Terry attempts to cope with his setbacks by imagining himself as the character in his Reprisalizer novels, a Kent-based vigilante who ultimately acts as a form of retribution for his beloved sibling. When elderly ex-Policeman and fan Ron (Joseph Bailey) dies, Ron leaves Terry his flat, where a gun is discovered in a concealed cash box. 

Running seventeen minutes, this technically impressive piece recreates the feel of 1970s grindhouse, and is a potential DEATH WISH for the Home Counties. It also contains a fake trailer that is as pitch perfect as BITCH KILLER, Holness and Richard Ayoade's counterfeit horror film teaser from their underappreciated spoof chat show MAN TO MAN WITH DEAN LEARNER. The death of George has frozen Finch in time; also Terry cannot accept that tastes have changed, where libraries have moved on from stocking westerns and men's action stories. Finchland is where fantasy and reality merge, and we leave the character as an extremely dangerous one.

Douglas Henshall is THE SNIPIST, a short which confirmed Holness' aspiration to become a filmmaker removed from his comedic origins.

Holness' twenty-six minute entry for Sky Arts' PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS, THE SNIPIST depicts a dystopian Britain stricken by rabies. Harker (Douglas Henshall) is a lone sniper struggling to maintain his sanity, ruled over by the Ministry of Information (voiced by John Hurt). Ordered to watch and protect stranded survivors, the Snipist monitors an injured woman (Kate O'Flynn) in a farmhouse, whose arm wound may be from the surrounding barb wire or the onset of the disease. The climax makes Harker - and the viewer - question what we are actually experiencing: is this a training exercise, or the workings of an unhinged mind? 

Holness has acknowledged 1970s Public Information Films deeply affected him growing up, as THE SNIPIST opens with an alarmingly effective imitation rabies PIF; we are constantly told that "It is your fault, you allowed rabies in Britain, you are to blame,” made even more potent by Hurt, who also provided the ominous chords behind the actual 1980s AIDS Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign. Henshall gives a suitably haunted performance, mixing fear for his own survival with the overall desolation. 

"Rest in piss;" Holness plays Oswin Tow in SMUTCH, 

a self-important author who literally encounters a ghost writer.

SMUTCH, an eleven minute Sky Arts COMEDY SHORT, follows Oswin Thaddeus Tow (Holness), an embittered author who has just written his masterpiece, A Shiver at Blandwood. Tow drinks green tea for its hallucinogenic properties to aid the artistic process, but this causes regular urination. When he desecrates on the grave of Smutch - who was an aspiring writer - a black stain appears on his manuscript, and strange messages appear. His photographer Keene (Jim Howick) is accidently killed by the toxicity of his urine mixing with developing chemicals, but Father Fenton (Clive Merrison) is "sucked inside out" by the otherworldly Smutch, as Oswin himself succumbs to an M. R. Jamesian-type demise. With a knowing nod to the British horror fascination with magnifying glasses, it's all a lark, though peeing makes for a rather one-note foundation.