Upon returning to his childhood home, disgraced puppeteer Phillip must confront the terrors of his past. Starring Sean Harris and Alun Armstrong, Possum is a stylish tale of isolation and abuse from writer/director Matthew Holness. Film4 Online’s Alice Werdine sat down with Matthew to talk about the making of the film.
Possum is a very intimate and personal film. Where did the story begin for you?
It began as a story that I wrote for an anthology book. They asked the author to look into Freud’s theory of the uncanny and pick a fear that appealed to you and write a story based on this. I picked the fear of dummies and the fear of doubles. But, there was a slight danger with a fear of dummies where you go down that rather clichéd route where, at the end of the film, we have the ventriloquist breaking down in one way or another, I thought it was interesting to start a story at that end point, where they are already broken down. I also watched a lot of silent German horror films, and I was really excited about how you could do a modern silent horror film. I was thinking about someone like Phillip, suffering what he suffered, he was someone who wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened to him. I felt that was a really good character and story with which I could tell a modern silent horror film.
And most of what we actually hear in the film is the music. Did you want to work with The Radiophonic Workshop from the beginning?
If I had known that I could, I would have been on it from the word go. But I never really thought working with them was an option. Essentially, during the edit, my editor and I, we put some contemporary pieces against the film, and the stuff that seemed to capture where Phillip’s head was at, were these old pieces from the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. These captured Phillip’s world, it expressed where his mind was at without telling you how he was feeling. When we met with the Radiophonic Workshop, they responded to the world of the film and offered to score it. What’s so brilliant about them is that it’s not just music, it’s sound design, it’s the whole package. Now suddenly, the whole film became Phillip’s.
Your background is in comedy and horror-comedy, what was your route into this more serious and darker version of horror?
I’ve always written stories and I’ve always wanted to write serious horror fiction. Possum started its life as a serious horror story. And when I made my short called A Gun For George, it was meant to be a kind of funny parody of 70s crime programmes, but during the filming of it, it became something much more serious. But it has been quite hard because when you are known for doing comedy, people can’t really see you as anything else. I kind of figured that it’s not a huge leap from comedy horror to horror, so that helps. And then maybe with making something that is devoid of humour, I’ll get there.
There’s a common thread in your work, a 60s and 70s vibe. What attracts you to that time period?
I guess I just watched so much of it growing up. And I’ve always responded to clichés, I can kind of smell clichés. When you’re a kid that doesn’t matter, that’s reality and you believe in it, but now I find it hard to take things seriously unless they are starkly realistic. And the dramas that I respond to are often like that, they are often quite old dramas. I’m huge fan of Alan Clarke. But for me, the nostalgia is not hugely intentional. And there is a danger of being too nostalgic. Possum, whilst it is looking backwards, it’s still set in a sort of ‘now’, and it’s about someone processing the past. I think that it’s important to look forward at the same time. Otherwise to just get lost in the past.
The horror you watch, does it also lean towards the more dramatic and realistic?
I watch a lot of horror. I probably watch it more that anything else. I like dark, serious stuff. Having said that, I really like the Conjuring films as well. James Wan is a fantastic director, he is technically a genius. I’d love the budget and opportunity to make something over the top. But I do think some really impressive horror films that I love, they are small, like Romero’s Martin is one of the greatest horror films ever made. Horror more than any other genre, you can have amazing films that have been made on very, very little.
You spoke about silent German horror films earlier. How did these films inspire you?
Films like Nosferatu and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (the 1920s version), The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Gollum, these German silent horror films all fed into Possum in some way. Especially The Hands Of Orlac, it’s not expressive, it’s not like Caligari. It has big empty rooms and darkness, and this was a big influence. But I think one thing they all have is that they are very close to fairytales, they have their routes in folklore. It’s almost like watching fairytales, because you can’t respond to the reality in them. They exist in their own world. It was important for me to capture the fairytale feel those films have.
That’s quite beautiful actually. And with Possum, with the cinematography, it also has this uncanny, other-worldly element to it.
Yeah, Kit Fraser, the DOP, he’s just fantastic. He just knew how to shoot and light so well. He knew exactly what I wanted to get. Not showing so much, just suggesting.
What was the first film the truly frightened you?
That would’ve been Hammer’s Dracula. The Terence Fisher one, which still frightens me. And I think it’s partly because I watched it as child, and I probably shouldn’t have watched it. But it also has this fairytale feel to it and I still get that when I go back to it. It’s odd because with Hammer films, they reuse the sets, but because they were so well redesigned, it means that everything is existing in the same psychological space, so they become something more; the limitations of producing all those films in a row, becomes their greatest strength.
Possum is screening as part of FilmFear at HOME, Manchester. Further details here.
