Even though Possum presents a highly stylized story with plenty of disturbing and confounding visuals, this is really an internal tale about repression, living with past grief, and the power of guilt when it festers and isn’t confronted. It also eloquently explores deeper material like whether it’s possible to truly overcome past compulsions or if they’re always with us and just lying dormant. Possum may examine such heady issues, but it never shows its hand in such regard. It presents all of this as a painful, psychological homecoming that shatters reality and distorts the truth in a way that’s extremely rare for the horror genre. What follows is a haunted lullaby that’s largely filtered through Philip’s perspective where both he and the audience are never truly sure what’s real. The result feels like Cronenberg’s internal Spider meets The Babadook, with a touch of Magic thrown in for good measure. There’s even a delightfully eerie nursery rhyme that accompanies the morbid puppet. Possum is a slow burn, but once it ignites, goddamn. Furthermore, Possum really makes the audience fight to see Philip’s spider puppet and when it’s finally revealed it does not disappoint. The thing is pure nightmare fuel and the sort of thing that Sid from Toy Story would make if he grew up and stopped taking his meds. Philip treats it with such reverence the first time it’s fully revealed that he simultaneously shifts between awe and fear with the object. If Philip’s puppet looked silly, none of this would work. So it’s satisfying to see the proper attention to detail put in to assure that this thing is as possible. It almost feels like the puppet’s face is modeled after Philip. He also keeps the puppet’s face obscured as often as possible, like this is a part of himself that he doesn’t want to confront and keep hidden. Very real crimes do take place within Possum, but the film instead examines the denial and grief around them, and presents a layered metaphor for the evil that lies within all of us. At the end of the day, are we a man or are we a spider? Is the evil streak that’s exhibited in this film over, or is it just hiding in remission and waiting for a safe moment to come back out? Just like you can’t run away from your guilt or your conscience forever, Philip cannot run away from his spider puppet. Possum premiered at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, and will be released in theaters in the UK and via VOD on Oct. 26. Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2018 Special Edition Magazine right here!
