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.

Short Cuts (Part I of III)

TAKE AN EASY RIDE (1976)
BLACK ANGEL (1980)

The opening narration to faux documentary TAKE AN EASY RIDE sets the tone: "At times you could wish the wife and kids were out of the way as you pass the mini-skirt thumbing a lift. The producers of this film wish to give you the opportunity to decide for yourselves whether hitchhiking should be banned. Is it a form of Russian roulette?" Margaret Heald looks suitably nervous.

CINEMA itself started as a short film, dictated by the amount of stock a camera could hold (around 1,000ft, which would equate to approximately eleven minutes at 24fps). Although the feature and double bills became prevalent, the notion of the short would also play a part on both an educational and entertainment level. These supporting pieces to the main event could cover public information (Will Hay and Thora Hurd extinguishing incendiary devices in GO TO BLAZES) to tantalising travelogues (TELLY SAVALAS LOOKS AT BIRMINGHAM). But there was also room for the experimental mini-drama, such as Stanley Baker portraying Edgar Allan Poe in THE TELL-TALE HEART.

TAKE AN EASY RIDE is a forty minute classic of ineptitude, dubiously mixing public information with sexploitation. Directed by Kenneth F. Rowles - who edited SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL and produced THE UPS AND DOWNS OF A HANDYMAN - the perils of hitchhiking are only the tip of the iceberg in this patchwork of stern voice over, vox pops and sleaze. Any attempt at moralising is lost in the four cautionary vignettes, which are unskillfully interwoven into 1970s cliché, poverty row production values and non acting; apparently Mary Millington tried out for a part but was turned down, which illustrates the standard on show.

TAKE AN EASY RIDE is one of the most immoral examples in a broad palette of hitchhiking film portrayals; together with the road movie, this is a subgenre with unlimited scope for capture and torture.

The main thread has Mary (Margaret Heald) and Anne (Helen Bernat) hitching to the Ashford pop festival, despite being given money to safely use the train (this land-locked event is illustrated by ITN footage of the 1970 Isle of Wight gathering). Picked up by a black-gloved man driving a convertible, the women become uncomfortable when he shows them a porn mag; a LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT-style assault then takes place by a river. The other violent tale has two female hoodlums (Gennie Nevinson and Sella Coley) steal a knife and - after an unconvincing drug deal - decide they need "a whole new scene;" this involves traveling "to the coast" and stabbing a driver for the contents of his wallet.

The unintentional highlight however is the yarn of Suzanne (Danish model Ina Skriver). "Excuse me, do you hitchhike?" asks the optimistic voiceover as she is stopped in the street; "oh yes, I used to hitch" she replies, "but it's not a pretty story." In flashback, we see our leggy blonde picked up in a Rolls Royce by swingers Alan (Alan Bone) and Margaret (Tara Lynn), ending up in a semi-consensual ménage a trois. The only glimmer of decency is portrayed by lorry driver Jock (Charles Erskine), who picks up a couple of girls (Pauline Bates and Christianne) - presumably going to the same festival - and protects them from abuse in a transport café (although he does take obligatory glances at their legs). 

Moving from set decorator on STAR WARS to art director of ALIEN and MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, it is no wonder Roger Christian would leave an impression with BLACK ANGEL.

Making fleeting use of T. Rex's 'Bang a Gong (Get It On),' TAKE AN EASY RIDE has been dubbed the ultimate English exploitation film. Originally intended for Southern Television, Rowles's extravaganza was expanded for a sordid supporting piece on the big screen (the Soho strip footage is shoehorned in to add to the already haphazard nature). It's not as if teenage girls would have taken to viewing it in the heart of Piccadilly's raincoat brigade anyway, and overall it has all the subtleties of a sledge hammer. When Mary's mother is in a state of not knowing if her daughter is alive or dead, a Police Inspector asks "I must know if your daughter was in the habit of taking lifts, whether she went out with a man, or men, regularly." The whole sorry mess ends on a POV shot of a police car, sirens blazing as it heads off to the next instance of debauchery.

At the other end of the creative spectrum we have Roger Christian's twenty-five minute BLACK ANGEL, which was commissioned by George Lucas to accompany the release of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in the UK, Australia and Scandinavia. Shot in the Eilean Donan region of the Scottish highlands, we follow medieval knight Sir Maddox (Tony Vogel), as he returns from the Crusades to find his home rife with sickness. Saved from drowning by a mysterious maiden, he learns that she is being held captive by the evil Black Knight. A penetrative myth that captures a timeless environment with age-long decay, prints of BLACK ANGEL were lost after its initial release, but a 35mm negative was discovered by a Universal archivist in 2011 and is now readily available online. Like many this writer remembers it fondly, and its imprint remained heavy on the consciousness of many STAR WARS fans; the slo-mo fight sequence even influenced EMPIRE for its Dagobah "dream" sequence.