Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #7

POSSUM

(June 2018)

Look at Possum, there he lies

Children, meet his lifeless eyes

See his nasty legs and tongue

When he wakens, watch him run

Drenched in tone and atmosphere, dotted with mysteries (a bag and its hideous contents; a perpetually closed door), Matthew Holness’ debut feature Possum is subjective, oblique horror at its finest.

In it, Sean Harris (notable to this film and music geek for portraying Joy Division’s Ian Curtis in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People) plays Philip Connell, who returns to his now squalid childhood home in an attempt to rid himself of his figurative (or perhaps literal?) demons.

And since we’ve mentioned music, certain aspects of Possum put me in mind of a particular track from The Cure’s Disintegration.

If you take a gander at Possum, and are a Cure fan, you’ll know which track I’m referring to…

And even if you aren’t a Cure fan, and are also somehow opposed to horror films that don’t rely on over-exposition, surely the eponymous Possum is a creature of deep, dark nightmare that, at the very least, demands to be seen, so its insidious presence can stain even your most innocent, sundrenched dreams…

Wait a while, my little child,

For what is playing dead

Possum, with his black balloons

Will eat you up in bed.

Parting Shot: Sean Harris also appears in Billy O’Brien’s excellently repulsive Isolation (review here).

(Possum OS courtesy of impawards.com.)