American Mary
The funny thing about AMERICAN MARY, the latest feature from Twisted Twins Productions team Jen and Sylvia Soska (DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK), is that it really doesn’t play as either a horror or thriller film that it’s credited as. It feels more like the bastard child of John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino. Focusing on budding young surgical student Mary Mason, who, as a victim of circumstance gets caught up in the world of underground body modification, crosses paths with a number of colorful and damaged characters. Viewers are invited to go down a rabbit hole of bloody dysmorphia as Mary struggles to find meaning, and money in her new trade.
Mary, as a character and heroine, is a really interesting study in how someone deals with stress, trauma, and circumstance. The audience is meant to feel sorry for her because she’s poor, struggling, and then the directors add rape into the scenario. She combats her monetary misfortune by doing what she does best, slashing open and fixing thugs for money. They way she handles her physical attack is a little more interesting. Mary modifies her patients to make them look on the outside to reflect how they feel on the inside. This can mean facial and genital mutilation, scarring, tattoos, and piercings. What Mary does to herself however is just the opposite. She modifies her emotions to reflect how she feels on the inside and presents that facade to the world before her. By mid-film she appears cold, calculating, and emotionally dead. Whatever purity was left in this character is nothing but a shade of what it once was, and it makes Mary a more effective surgeon, and protagonist. How her transformation is handled is really exceptional. Jen and Sylvia don’t beat the audience over the head with one single shot, but they take time to show the varying degrees of severity in which Mary falls.
The cinematography is really outstanding. Not just in reference to the shots themselves, but also in regard to the practical effects done by everyone in the makeup department. The way everything was presented just looked incredibly real, even when some of the characters were obviously meant to be exaggerated. The cutting effects, the blood, the lighting, and the genuine actors and actresses who’ve had body modifications done all added to the world the Soska sisters put the audience into.
The acting by lead Katharine Isabelle (GINGER SNAPS, FREDDY VS JASON) is really solid. Her portrayal of Mary really shows her ability to deliver a solid performance that transcends the horror genre entirely and makes the audience sympathize and loathe her at the same time. The ending of the film really effectively finishes the emotional ride this character puts the viewers through and satisfies both the moral and ethical question of “where does this girl go from here?”. The supporting cast also completely maintains the integrity of the world the Soska’s have created. Additional regard should be given to Tristan Risk for her role as Beatrice and Paula Lindberg as Ruby Realgirl. Both of them delivered great performances despite having to deliver them through a lot of makeup and facial appliances. Even the Soska twins themselves have a particularly unsettling cameo that’s worth the price of admission alone.
AMERICAN MARY isn’t a perfect movie. The soundtrack occasionally feels mis-matched and layered on in some scenes, and there are a few ADR gaffs. Aside from that, technically this is a wonderful example of independent horror filmmaking. Jen and Sylvia are part of a new generation of filmmakers raised on horror and have a clear respect for their predecessors and also their audience.
