page_title: Possum (2018 film)
section_title: Concept and development
hierarchical_section_title: Possum (2018 film) / Production / Concept and development
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographic portrait of Sigmund Freud, signed by the sitter ("Prof. Sigmund Freud")
context_page_description: Possum is a 2018 British psychological horror film written and directed by Matthew Holness in his feature film debut, starring Sean Harris and Alun Armstrong. The film centres on a disgraced children's puppeteer who returns to his childhood home, and is forced to confront the childhood abuse and trauma that he suffered.
  Holness had previously worked on the television series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which he wrote, directed, and starred in as the title character; he also published several short stories. The film is an adaption of Holness' short story, "Possum", which was published in the horror anthology The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease.
  As a fan of the horror genre, Holness stated that he much prefers horror films that "linger with you" and force the audience to reflect upon the experience afterward. The film Possum's visual style was inspired by public information films that Holness had seen during his youth. Other inspirations for the film include Dead of Night, George Romero's Martin, and German Expressionist films.
  Possum premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 25 June 2018.
context_section_description: Possum marks the feature film debut of English comedian, author, and director Matthew Holness. Holness had previously worked on the cult television series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace; which he both wrote, directed, and starred in as the title character, as well as the publication of several short stories. Although normally associated with comedies, Holness himself admitted he had always been a fan of the horror genre, but stressed that it had been difficult to break from his reputation for comedies: "To be honest I've always been in to much more serious stuff, I've written short stories and things over the years, and I've been trying to break away for doing comedy stuff for a long time. But the trouble is, if you're known for something— particularly a show that had a very strong following— it becomes quite hard to be perceived as anything else."
  The film itself is an adaption of  Holness' own short story of the same name, which was published in the horror anthology The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease. The story centred on a character unable to verbally and emotionally express himself due to childhood trauma, choosing instead to do so by creating a horrific puppet. The basis for the story was partially drawn from theories on the uncanny by Sigmund Freud. According to Holness, the publishers had all the writers read Freud's theory of the uncanny. The publishers then had the writers "pick a fear that appealed and write a story for a modern audience". Holness ended up choosing two, a fear of doppelgängers and a fear of ventriloquists' dummies, combining the two fears so as to avoid being clichéd. After the story's publication, Holness soon forgot about the idea until he had begun working on developing a possible horror film. Developing the film's story, Holness drew upon his love of silent films: "I'd been watching a lot of silent horror films from the ’20s and ’30. ’20s mainly. I found them so brilliantly creepy in ways that lots of other films these days aren’t, simply because they had to express everything visually and you had all these tortured psyches and tortured characters that were all being haunted by stuff that they couldn't really express. I'd watch them and then I thought, 'Could you do a modern silent horror film? How could you do that?'" Opting to make "a modern silent film", Holness was then reminded of the original short story, which he felt would fit perfectly with his idea to express as little dialogue as possible.
caption: Both Holness' original short story and the subsequent adaptation was partially based upon the theories of the uncanny by neurologist Sigmund Freud.[2]
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