Medical student Mary Mason is on her way to achieving her life goal of becoming a surgeon, save for her bills which she is struggling to pay. On the night that she decides to take up stripping in order to help pay off said bills, she finds herself indadvertedly drawn into the world of underground surgeries. Though initially aghast, she finds that taking large sums of money in order to perform "special" procedures on particular clientele may not be such a bad idea after all, though the repercussions will be more dire than suspected.
Alright, that wasn't the most eloquent of ways to start a review. I never claimed to be a professional. Not yet at least.
Speaking of professional, directors/sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska (alias "The Twisted Twins") don't come from a famous family or have a large budget (at least to my knowledge), though the two did make some waves in 2009 with their very bluntly titled Dead Hooker in a Trunk. Shot in only fifteen days, American Mary is their second, but hopefully not last horror effort, as this ends up being a pretty darn good little film, and gives us the best performance from Katharine Isabelle we've seen to date.
Once the initial viewing was completed, I often wondered why the Canadian actress Isabelle isn't a bigger star, be it in horror films or in cinema in general. She's got a great look, a credible amount of sly charisma, and certainly shows that she can carry a movie by herself if need be. It's perplexing as to why she isn't as big as someone like, say, Emma Stone or Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I don't want to say it is due to bad career decisions (go watch her breakthrough role in Ginger Snaps and tell me she wouldn't have been a star), since everyone is capable of slipping up once in a while, but maybe her awesome job here will finally help turn her career around again. The character of Mary never becomes unsympathetic throughout the film's running time either, save for maybe a few moments of "desperation," which seem altogether tragic in retrospect. She's easy to identify with, struggling mentally and financially, and as the film progresses, she regresses, but still retains a sense of humanity. Mary is also the source of most of the movie's dark humor, something I didn't quite expect, but welcomed.
While Mary's a great character indeed, I think the support cast ranged from "pretty interesting" to "evil bad guy man." There's the character of Beatress, who will make me never, and I mean, EVER want to look at Betty Boop again. She's fun, freaky, and all around kind of sad. But then there's pretty much every male character. American Mary doesn't exactly hide its feminist message, which I don't really have a problem with, but every male is either a creep, an asshole, or a combination of both. There are glimpses of men who resemble none of the above, but they're so rarely seen, it ultimately doesn't matter. But much like Lucky McKee's The Woman (also a very pro-feminist film), this didn't hurt my overall enjoyment of the product. Some nitpickers will have a major problem with the way the Soskas choose the wrap their project, as there feel like some loose ends that don't quite get tied up, but I think it would be a case of doing the math and figuring things out for yourself.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I have a personal problem with viewing motion pictures, or even programs that deal with surgical procedures, be it on living beings or dead ones. Even programs such as HBO's Autopsy back in the day used to make my stomach turn in a way where I had to change the channel in order to prevent last night's dinner from coming back up. Unless you're extremely squeamish, American Mary isn't likely to cause that reaction in you, but I think those of you more critical of "Stateside" horror will find something to like here, even if this is technically from our brothers/sisters up north. Count me in for future projects from these twins, but I might have to politely ask that they don't attempt to play any more Russian twins in those pictures.
Tomorrow, we're not quite done with ladies night and take a trip to THE DEVIL'S ROCK!
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