Possum (2018) Reviews

• Evil hands

  leonayt2019-03-08

  The story is about a puppeteer, Richie, came a to small town to visit his uncle. While I was watching, I thought he is a guy that is cursed by some spider spirit. He attempt to destroy the spider puppet but the spider keep on coming back to him. At the last part of the movie, where he opens the door of a room, that's the time all truth reveals. When Richie is still small, he was raped(my assumption) and tortured by his uncle Maurice. The scary spider is actually the representation of the hands of uncle Maurice. There was a drawing in Richie's diary where the spider is crawling toward him in his bed. I think it is the illustration of the childhood nightmare of Richie on how his uncle torture him using his evil hands. First 5/6 of the movie was about Richie throwing away his puppet. As Richie grows old, he try to throw away the "spider"(trauma), but the spider(trauma) keeps on coming back to him. I can see the fear on his face every time he saw the spider. At the last part of the movie, he enter the room. The childhood trauma replays and he can't bare it no more. He kills his uncle and set free a kid that his uncle kidnapped. I think setting the kid free symbolizes Richie setting himself free from childhood trauma.

• Would've been better as a short film, nothing new

  DanaStyle1012019-02-20

  The concept & execution are done well, but stretching everything into a feature length film was unnecessary. It gets a bit laggy aside from the already ample time set for creating suspense & intrigue. I found myself getting bored & impatient with a "just wrap things up" mentality - you're given the information needed to connect the dots, but are then beaten over the head with it for another 45 minutes.

• Garth Merenghi's Dullplace

  bobhartshorn2018-11-02

  Possum is a (very) slight yarn about shamed puppeteer Richie (Sean Harris) returning to the decaying home of his childhood. Richie spends his days wandering an undisclosed part of Norfolk ( population 10?) to the accompaniment of a Radiophonic Workshop soundtrack. There's a child abduction case lurking in the shadows too. Could Richie be involved, and what is that ghastly apparition nesting in the bowels of his bag? Yeah, on paper, this one sounded like it'd be right up my street. So its with heavy heart I regret to inform you that Holness' debut in the writer/director chair is a major disappointment. Based on a self-penned short story (and showing every inch of it) Holness' painfully derivative Lynchian pseudo art-horror would have been rightly rejected before a frame had been shot had his name not been attached to it. However, it's less Eraserhead and more Frank Henenlotter's Basketcase gatecrashing David Cronenberg's Spider without the wit & intrigue of any of them. Surprise & suspense evaporate within the first 20 minutes and it spends the rest of its time hitting the same dull beat until the non-too-shocking anti-climactic reveal. I do appreciate the repetitive nature of the narrative is intentional and is absolutely fundamental to the vivid picture it attempts to paint of a nightmare in a damaged brain. But the lack of variation in tone and design (not to mention locations) make for a very ugly and oppressive viewing experience, and not in the way it's creator would hope. The performances are unconvincing too: Alun Armstrong as Richie's seedy Uncle Maurice, devours the scenery amateur-dramatics Bill Sykes style, whilst Harris (an actor I've irrationally had it in for since his rancid space-crusty turn in Prometheus) goes full method with one-note, misery-guts mug and mannered mannequin body contortions. And true to Lynch-clone fashion, he does it decked out in a gormless-looking, buttoned to the neck grey shirt. Its ironic then that, the only positive thing to say about him (and Possum as a whole) is the major contribution he makes to the creepy-crawly thing you can see on the poster. The arachnid is sublime, and the only thing you'll remember long after you've forgotten the film.

• Creepy spider puppet but too slow.

  deloudelouvain2019-04-03

  There are too much things that just bothered me in this movie. It's way too slow and repetitive to keep my full attention for such a long period. It's dark and gloomy, that's the positive thing about Possum, but the mystery just took too long to reveal. You will have to wait until the last five minutes to know what the underlying problems are for Sean Harris to act so mysterious during the entire movie. The spider puppet is creepy, more to my wife than to me, but since the story is so slow it just loses it's purpose at one point. The acting wasn't bad but the story just failed even if for once the ending was better than the rest. I can see why people would like this movie but to me it was just not good enough.

• Drama with horror elements.

  tarik_islamovic2019-03-09

  It's not for everyone, it shows horror of unconscious traumatized part of mind and in some points it's very creepy but confusing.