POSSUM

"The thing is pure nightmare fuel" - den of geek

“Truly horrifying puppet " - bloody disgusting

"A terrifying puppet" - time out

The most horrifying puppet you've ever seen " The Shiznet

“And then there's little Possum himself. Holy Crap”. - Horror talk

“The freakiest horror movie puppet ever commited to film" - short.com

"Possum is the stuff of real nightmares" - film enquiry

The various stages of Possum

Matthew Holness' Possum revolves around a disgraced puppeteer returning to his hometown to uncover some uncomfortable truths. 

Here you can see a quick foam mock up I did to make sure that the legs could fold up into the bag that was it’s abdomen but also hang on a door looking creepy. Things that are hard to work out digitally.  

After this rough direction was decided, Possum was then sculpted in zbrush over the course of a few weeks, tweaking it so it got to the right level of creepiness. Afterwards the files were sent to OddStudio in Australia, where Adam Johansen, Damien Martin and their team fabricated the puppet. 

Unfortunately, when it came to shooting, Matt found the head I'd designed wasn’t quite right, so a clay head was quickly sculpted on my kitchen table and approved that night. Tristan Schooneraad then moulded and finished the completed head as I was moving house at the time. It was one of those skin of your pants moments that makes filmmaking a lot of fun.

Possum is one of the projects I am most proud of, not just because it was an international effort with some friends, but because the film was original, made with great care and scared the pants off so many people.   

Storyboards done for an unused dream sequence.