Similarities to Adam Rifkin' "The Dark Backward"

About midway through APE I started noticing some similarities to Adam Rifkin's "The Dark Backward".

Anyway, some mild spoilers, read on if you want to:

Both movies are about a bad standup comic on the fringe, kind of losing it. And both they start growing a Lynch/Croenberg bio-horror kind of thing. Backward its a third arm out of his back, and in this one, its what appears to be a tree branch.

I have to resee Rifkin's movie to really draw any more comparison, but I am pretty sure I am not the only one who noticed this. Both are pretty darn odd movies by the way!