The comedian who created the cult television show Darkplace spent years trying to shed his comedic reputation before making this film about a puppet nobody can bear to look at.

POSSUM (2018) is the feature debut of Matthew Holness, who turned from comedy to fiction and then to film. The story began as a short piece Holness wrote for the horror anthology The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease, where every contributor was asked to read Sigmund Freud’s essay on the uncanny before writing.

His story follows Philip, played by Sean Harris, a disgraced children’s puppeteer who returns to his childhood home and the abusive uncle who raised him. The puppet, a spider-limbed thing with a human face, becomes the vessel for everything Philip cannot say aloud.

It is a study of trauma given form, shot in Norfolk with backing from the BFI and a score from the Radiophonic Workshop.