Appendage is part of this year’s Huluween rollout as one of the new horror movies featured this October on the streaming platform. So far, this writer/director debut has received little attention from critics and audiences alike, sweeping it under the rug with mixed reviews despite its enticing approach to metaphor-laden horror. Not every source is reliable when it comes to streaming Appendage.
Appendage Plot Summary
Appendage began life as a short film starring Rachell Sennott, and the same premise is expanded here into a feature-length film. When a fashion designer reaches the breaking point with her high pressures from work and shaky relationship with her parents, her mental state becomes a physical presence birthed from her body like separating a conjoined twin. As her fears, insecurities, and difficulties in life grow, the creature grows in size and power.
Is Appendage Inventive or Unoriginal?
The first thing to note with such a strange concept is that, in over 100 years of film history, a new movie almost always has a precedent. The first example that might come to the experienced horror viewer’s mind is Basket Case, the twisted, darkly humorous 1982 Frank Henenlotter film about a deformed separated Siamese twin who murders people (he’s also known for other gems like Frankenhooker). Conjoined twins are not the most common horror film subject of all time, but the idea has also been explored as recently as 2021 in James Wan’s Malignant.
For both of these previous examples, the attempt at creating a notable message by the end is substantially less present than in Appendage, which has an obvious but still intriguing and intricate metaphor about your anxieties and mental problems infecting your life without a proper way of dealing with them. With every new sequence, as our main character first channels the creature’s influence into her design work and then tries to either medicate it or listen to it and let it run wild, the meaningful intentions that writer/director Anna Zlokovic imbues into her first feature could not be more apparent. All that is left to judge is whether Zlokovic has turned in an entertaining and affecting experience here, and that is where opinions strongly differ.
Hadley Robinson in ‘Appendage’
Is Appendage Worth Watching?
However commendable it may be for its guiding principles, no one can deny there are fatal filmmaking flaws found here. Hadley Robinson picks up the role from Sennott nicely, as her horror movie reactions suit the gruesomeness, but Zlovokic’s establishing of tone has room for improvement. With Sennott’s comedic timing joining the amusing dialogue and over-the-top, oozy appearance of the appendage, the original short was a bit of a laugh. Her replacement, however, does not have that same energy.
Hadley’s character in the film version appears constantly pained, resulting in the quotes of the creature coming off as unintentionally funny and often falling flat. With overly-stretched pathways and uncertainty in how to communicate its entertainment value to the audience, Appendage misses the mark even with plenty of effort and intelligence. The potential of this Hulu original is evident from the onset; sadly, few will feel engaged enough to say the 90-minute experience was worth the time.
Appendage is streaming now on Hulu.
