My quick rating – 5.5/10. Here is a horror flick for Huluween that popped up, so naturally, I figured we may as well check it out before it disappears into the streaming abyss. Appendage starts off like it is going to take itself very seriously, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, decides that maybe a little comedy would be fun. Well, okay then. Let’s see where this goes.
Surprisingly, it goes somewhere pretty decent.
Directed by Anna Zlokovic in her feature-film debut, Appendage follows Hannah (Hadley Robinson), a young fashion designer whose already stressful life takes a seriously bizarre turn when her darkest thoughts begin manifesting as a gruesome, living appendage. Yes, an actual appendage. Because apparently regular anxiety wasn’t horrifying enough.
The movie initially presents itself as a psychological horror story, and there is some genuinely creepy stuff going on. Then the comedy starts creeping in, and at first, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. The shift in tone felt a little out of place, but as the story progressed, I began to understand what the film was trying to do.
At its core, Appendage uses its horror-comedy setup as a not-so-subtle way of visualizing mental illness, anxiety, self-doubt, and the darker thoughts that can consume someone. It isn’t exactly the most conventional way to tackle those subjects, but it gives the movie something more interesting to work with than simply having a monster chase people around for 94 minutes.
The story really starts to come together once Hannah meets Claudia (Emily Hampshire) and the bigger picture begins to emerge. Once everything is revealed, I had a pretty good idea where the movie was going, and I actually enjoyed the direction it took. I’m not going to spoil that part because discovering exactly what is going on is key, and I don’t like doing that.
What surprised me most was how well the horror and comedy eventually started working together. The humor that initially seemed like it had wandered in from a different movie gradually made more sense within the story. It gives Appendage a strange, quirky personality that keeps it from becoming just another psychological horror movie.
The cast also does a solid job. Robinson carries most of the film as Hannah, and the increasingly bizarre situation she finds herself in gives her plenty to work with. Hampshire‘s appearance helps push the story in the direction it ultimately needs to go, and the supporting cast adds to the strange little world the movie creates.
My biggest hesitation was the actual Appendage itself. The visual design is certainly…something. I wasn’t immediately convinced that this weird fleshy nightmare was going to work, but eventually I just accepted that this was the movie we had been given and went along for the ride.
The closest comparison I could come up with was Malignant, mainly because both movies take what initially appears to be a fairly straightforward horror setup and eventually reveal that there is considerably more going on underneath. Appendage obviously isn’t operating on quite the same insane level, but it has that same feeling of, “Okay, I see what you’re doing now.”
For Zlokovic‘s first feature-length film, I was actually pretty impressed. Appendage isn’t going to reinvent horror, and the uneven tone won’t work for everyone, but it takes some chances and manages to blend horror, comedy, and psychological themes into something considerably more entertaining than I expected.
Appendage is not a perfect horror movie by any stretch, but it is an interesting little horror-comedy that caught me off guard. If you like your horror with a healthy dose of bizarre humor and don’t mind a movie taking a few strange turns along the way, this one is worth checking out.
