Horror likes to take a human fear and personify it. It’s a winning move, materializing our worst nightmares, but what does a woman’s self-doubt look like? In this case, extremely ugly and somewhat laughable, but surely not scary. The special effects team dropped the ball on this one, and the appendage’s physical presence is more distracting than anything. Its concept and its aura, though, go a long way, and there are a few admirable twists and turns that make a curious point about female psychology and social expectations. Their interdependency then translates into the film’s sparse backstory, tracing a journey of trauma that’s surprisingly relatable. Interestingly enough, director Anna Zlokovic made a short of the same name in 2021 which teased the idea of a monster sucking your confidence in secret, but her latest feature film lacks that punch.
"while this feature debut is certainly body horror, it is also a psychological allegory, dramatising Hannah’s therapeutic path to both emotional balance and accommodation of her worst qualities alongside the best."
— Anton Bitel
"A comically freaky look at the inner voices we must learn to live with."
— Nick Allen
After hitting a breaking point, Hannah's inner thoughts physicalize into a monstrous creature that threatens to upend her life.
Hannah (Hadley Robinson) is trying really hard to keep up with her demanding job as an apprentice to a fashion designer, to open up to her boyfriend, and to manage the expectations of her cold mother. One day, self-doubt gets the best of her in a pretty literal way as her darkest thoughts become a gruesome entity of their own.
While this is not a film for the faint-hearted, Appendage takes its body horror seriously. Of course, David Cronenberg's The Brood or Scanners come to mind, and you can tell Zlokovic learned from the best. The despicable creature in her film is not as scary or expertly crafted, but she knows better than to rely strictly on the gore. Instead, her mastery in turning the female body into a ticking bomb is praiseworthy. Whether Hannah prods at her stomach wound or just chips at her fingernail—to that excruciating sound of nail scratching nail—there's so much self-sabotage internalized in every gesture. What sets Appendage apart even as a second-rate horror film is how anxiety can be expressed through body horror to the point of hair-raising ick.
Raise a hand if you ever wanted your anxiety to literally leave your body.
Sundance
1 nomination