American Mary is simply an awesome example of how independent horror cinema is more often than not outpacing studio funded output these days.
The film tells the story of med student Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle). Experiencing some difficulty paying for the exorbitant cost of school, she ventures to a Craigslist-like web site and finds an ad for a strip club that claims she could earn “Thousands per night” and “No sex.” Not one who is shy when it comes to her sexuality, Mary decides to check it out.
Once there, she meets the club owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) and the interview process goes well as he becomes noticeably smitten with her. However, before it is over, something comes up. It turns out one of his “clients” has been beaten pretty badly. Not wanting to draw attention from the police that would come with a trip to the hospital, he asks Mary about her med school background and she agrees to help in exchange for $5,000 cash.
Mary is shaken by the event and at first vows to return home and never venture into that life again. That deed has gotten her noticed by some of those at the club, however.
They are members of what they term the Body Modification Community or the “Body Mod Community” for short. They desire her surgical services and in exchange for large sums of cash, they ask for such things as the removal of sexual organs, tongue splitting, and more. At first, Mary is unwilling to explore any of it as she believes she will one day be an honest to goodness surgeon. It is only after a terrifying event at a function hosted by one of her professors that Mary begins to realize that the medical community is home to more monstrous people than those in the body mod community and the latter is where she can better utilize her unique skills.
The main reason
American Mary works so well are the performances, chiefly the lead one. Isabelle is consistently phenomenal in the film, ably handling the script’s tricky mix of humor and pitch black brutality and navigating her character’s changing view of the world and how it impacts her behavior. Her character reminded me some of AnnaLynne McCord’s “Excision” character in that this is a possibility of what that character would be like when older and a little more mature and otherwise refined. Even as you realize that she is kind of going off the deep end part of you can’t help but cheer her on and it’s to Isabelle’s credit that the film works as well as it does.
Writer-directors Jen and Sylvia Soska have come a long way since their very cost-effective debut, “Dead Hooker in a Trunk” as they infuse
American Mary with a level of artistry not expected in a small mostly self-financed Canadian production. The film very much resembles a studio release in that the cinematography and production design are all top-notch, quite impressive for a film that cost less than $1 million. They even make cameos in the film as body mod clients of Mary.
It’s too bad that the film’s subject matter is likely too niche for the increasingly risk averse studio system to touch as
American Mary deserves a wide theatrical release and the exposure that comes with it, both for the directors and Isabelle, who has languished for far too long in B-movie hell for someone with her talent.
Grade:
A
