Possum: Worth a watch?

Lowkey British chiller Possum certainly wins the award for Silliest Name for a Horror Movie, but is it any good?

This moody, largely silent study in Lynchian strangeness and English grottiness will seem like a drag to some, but bear with it and you may find it oddly bewitching.

Possum's hits

• Sean Harris as an absolute weirdo who may or may not be a paeodphile and Alun Armstrong as the world's shadiest uncle.
• A definitely-unsuitable-for-children puppet which is a) indestructable and b) probably alive. It really looks nothing like a possum.
• A scenic backdrop of scrappy moorland and post-industrial decay which shows off rural England at its worst.
• An atmosphere of unrelenting dread courtesy of the Radiophonic Workshop's experimental score.

Possum's misses

• The unrelenting bleakness. Though Harris and Armstrong give complex performances, it's near-impossible to sympathise with either of their characters.
• Leaves itself very open to the "nothing really happens" criticism. 
• The raft of unanswered questions is either intriguingly ambiguous or downright frustrating. Just what's going on with the black balloons? Why exactly is Philip (Sean Harris) in disgrace?
• The climax can't help but feel a little underwhelming, although Possum's electric final appearance almost makes up for it.

Cliché count

• Creepy drawings and scary nursery rhymes. All very Babadook.
• A staticky television that only works when it needs to broadcast important plot points.
• The film exists in a state of near permanent darkness and there is a lot of creeping down corridors.
• One trend that we are a fan of is portraying monsters as metaphors for trauma and mental health issues. Possum is so much scarier because of the suggestion that he's an embodiment of the darkness within Philip.

Spoilers, questions and theories

• Did Philip disgrace himself by whipping Possum out at a children's party? Are the black balloons somehow a reference to this?
• What's going on with Uncle Morris's (Armstrong) sweets? Has he been poisoning Philip since he was a child?
• So Morris abused Philip and Possum is a way for Philip to deal with his repressed traumatic memories?
• We never see Possum move of his own volition aside from in Philip's nighmares and it looks like Philip just rescued him from the river and the fire. So we're guessing that Possum isn't alive and the whole thing is just inside Philip's head. Probably.
• What really happened to Philip's parents?

Possum is now playing in selected cinemas (sorry non-London peeps) and is available to stream on Amazon Prime from £5.99.

Still looking for a film to stream? Terrified has its flaws, but is properly scary in places. It's available to stream on Shudder now. Read our spoiler-free review here.

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