Director/Screenplay – Anna Zlokovic, Producers – Alex Familian, Katrina Kudlick, Hadley Robinson & Anna Zlokovic, Photography – Powell Robinson, Music – Nick Chuba, Visual Effects – Accomplice FX, LLC (Neon Pig & Justin Sarceno), Makeup Effects/Creature Effects – Amber Mari Creations, Production Design – Michelle Patterson. Production Company – 20th Digital Studio.
Cast
Hadley Robinson (Hannah), Emily Hampshire (Claudia/Voice of Baby Appendage/Voice of Scoundrel Appendage), Kausar Mohammed (Esther), Brandon Mycal Smith (Kaelin), Desmin Borges (Cristean Ulman), Deborah Rennard (Stacy), Pat Dortch (Steven)
Plot
Hannah is an apprentice designer at a prestigious New York fashion house. All of a sudden, a mark appears on her side and then a creature forces its way out. Hannah learns that this is a malignant twin. She keeps the appendage a prisoner in the cellar, although the dark thoughts it gives her prove some inspiration with her designs. She encounters a support group for people with appendages where she is offered a drug that can keep the twin sedated. She is befriended by one of the group Claudia who inspires Hannah to listen to the appendage and allow it to influence her – only for Hannah to then find her life in danger of being taken over by a doppelganger.
The malignant twin theme has had some history on screen before. Stephen King hinted at it as an explanation for The Dark Half (1993) and the idea made an appearance in the more supernatural sense in The Unborn (2009). The most pronounced usage was in the Canadian-made Let Her Out (2016) and most recently in James Wan’s Malignant (2021). Both Let Her Out and Malignant have, as Appendage does, the heroine fighting against being taken over by the other twin. You could even in some ways construe Appendage as being a horror version of the black comedy How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989).
Director/writer Anna Zlokovic does touch upon interesting ideas such as the appendage representing something dark and repressed that allows Hadley Robinson to rebel against her cloying family life and have some success in the workplace dominated by her ultra-critical boss (Desmin Borges). However, Appendage is not nearly as interesting as that. At its most amusing, we encounter a support group for appendage possessors and then discover they have hatched a secret plan to allow the appendages to take over society.
Hadley Robinson confronts the horror of an appendage taking over her life
By the latter half, the film falls back on Doppelganger film and Body Snatchers clichés about the appendage taking over the host’s lives and of Hadley Robinson’s fight to regain control of her own life. The film wraps up in a very traditional way. What does kill a good deal of the film’s effectiveness is that the titular appendage is represented by a jerky puppet. This is particularly evident in the scenes where it is walking around and especially when it is speaking with a voice that is not lip synched.
The film was a directorial debut for newcomer Anna Zlokovic.
