Appendage

Appendage

Hannah possesses an ugly part of herself, hidden away from the world in the basement of her apartment building. It’s shaped like a smashed jellybean with googly eyes and slimy skin; like “E.T.” if all the joy had been stomped out; like a complete mental health crisis. This thing also speaks, in a sinister low and high voice, and it doesn’t say very nice things to Hannah: “You can’t connect with anyone. You’re self-obsessed, pathetic freak. I know you very well. I’ll protect you.”

This monster her appendage should know Hannah well because it ripped itself out from a birthmark on Hannah’s side early into this movie’s freaky fun, carrying the DNA of an unborn twin. Among many smart choices, puppet work makes it visceral but silly too for writer/director Anna Zlokovic. It’s part of this Hulu horror-comedy’s gleeful self-awareness as a comic freak-out over the inner voices we must learn to live with.

Hannah (Hadley Robinson) is a fashion designer racing toward burn-out thanks partly to her snooty boss Cristean (Desmin Borges) and his unquenchable standards for everyone around him. She works alongside her friend Esther (Kausar Mohammed), both of them wearing tattoos of a pulse a simple image that says everything about how much they care for each other’s well-being.

But that bond is tested by what she doubts inside: Not only is Hannah trying to please a toxic boss but she starts to believe that her six-month boyfriend Kaelin (Brandon Mychal Smith) might be cheating on her with Esther too. Add in her tension with mother Stacy (Deborah Rennard), whom she hides mental problems from, and it bursts out: Hannah’s appendage tries to steer her mentally first and then physically.

Among many funny turns in this story, it turns out that Hannah is not alone. She soon meets other people with appendages who can quiet them every day using a serum. In this group, she meets sleek Claudia (Emily Hampshire), who dresses all black and fancies herself as being unlike this batch of normies. Hannah thinks Claudia is her cool confidant but that becomes another dangerous relationship once Hannah’s appendage gains more power, and joins a larger appendage conspiracy.

Zlokovic’s tone shifts confidently between sincere emotional beats and horror-comedy, her story’s expanding scope taking after ‘80s directors like John Carpenter or Larry Cohen. As with their grimy classics, the far-out genre pieces here are ways to underline the story’s psychology and then go further than a serious, less gooey project could.

Zlokovic keeps the story active and slimy by always propping up its strangeness including that Hannah’s appendage is one of many in the world and has more powers best revealed by the story itself. And as with a scene that uses close-ups and escalating edits to make Hannah picking at her nails as visceral as possible, “Appendage” knows when to up its grossness without becoming dull.

Sometimes Zlokovic’s script twists are smarter than what follows, but “Appendage” never loses sight of the relationships at stake. Performances help especially Robinson, whose increasing power parallels script’s playful weirdness and Zlokovic often writes dialogue with a bite.

Hannah has one very well-crafted scene with her mother, who seems most mad at Hannah for making her so upset in the past. “Did you ever think about what it’s like to want to do that to yourself?” she asks, trying to show a pain that once led to an attempt on her life. “No,” replies her mom, tears in her eyes blocking out everything but the surface of her daughter: “Because I’m not f**ked up.”

These tearful moments, delivered with tantalizing care by first-time director Zlokovic, aren’t just a filmmaker showing off some budding dramatic chops they’re this movie’s mid-size roller coaster ride lubricant.

Unlike Hannah, this movie has a healthy relationship with its arm it knows when to use it for gross-out body horror comedy or a bit of drama that cuts right through. Just in time for Hulu’s acquisition of the “Leprechaun” films (including “Leprechaun 4: In Space”), Zlokovic has crafted herself a lovely monster connected directly to her own evident promise.

Watch Appendage For Free On Gomovies.