Appendage
It also doubles as a pro-women's choice / abortion flick
as well
dir: Anna Zlokovic
2023
Appendage, despite the name, which sounds like a prequel to Boogie Nights, is funny and horrifying in appropriate measure, and works in ways and on levels that Cobweb, the horror flick I saw just before it, never does.
This flick works more on a close-up, bonkers queasy physical level, because at first at least it’s about an anxious and stressed out person physically reacting to all the bullshit life throws up for us on a daily basis. We’re not talking about anything radically inventive or brand new – there are countless movies and stories about people and their darker selves, the shadow self that Carl Jung constantly banged on about; the Jekyll and Hyde nature of humanity.
This flick though…
Hanna (Hadley Robinson) is young, and yet stressed the fuck out. She has a wonderful boyfriend (Brandon Mychal Smith), a job as a fashion designer with an acclaimed atelier, an intense best friend (Kauser Mohammed) that she also works with, and she’s blonde, young and white in America. What could she possibly have to complain about?
Well, you know, sorry to have to mansplain things to you, but however matters may look on the surface of people’s lives, none of that necessarily prevents or alleviates the potential impact of trauma, of depression or anxiety on any individual.
The body keeps the score, or so the saying goes. Hanna’s nervous tics in the face of the instances of frustration or disappointment seem to be escalating, and regardless of her polite and pleasant outward demeanour, her insides are roiling, and she is struggling.
And something seems like it’s growing out of her left side, out of her birthmark.
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