American Mary Review

Movie: American Mary
By: Maniac E
Date: February 15, 2013

Pain Is Inevitable, Suffering Is Optional

American Mary has been circulating around in the festival area's and is now here on bluray! The movie created some real buzz around itself and I must say it was hard to keep away from it. Luckily I could resist and see if the movie really is as big as it was intended to be by the Twisted Twins.

Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle -Ginger Snaps/Freddy vs. Jason) is a medical student studying to be a surgeon. Struggling to make ends meet she applies for a job working as a masseuse at a seedy strip joint owned by the equally seedy Billy (Antonio Cupo), but as she is being interviewed Billy calls upon her surgical services to help patch up one of the club's clients and rewards her with $5000 in cash.

Soon after Mary is visited by the slightly odd Beatrice (Tristan Risk), who offers to pay Mary a vast sum of cash to perform an unusual body modification on a friend, which she reluctantly does. As word gets around Mary begins to get offers to perform all sorts of bizarre operations, but she also gets the attention of her tutor Dr. Grant (David Lovgren) who begins a chain of events with Mary that forces her to use her skills against those she trusted as she turns her back on regular surgery in favor of making her tormentors suffer.

First off, the characters in the movie are very well done and might I say even it is a breath of fresh air since a long time. You can clearly see that the Twisted Twins know their stuff and it shows in the way they present us the whole body modification, in a way that balances between the sense of wonder and the grotesque. It all goes down in very almost relaxing mood which makes you think while you watch. Not often this comes over in a good way but this time it has and makes sure it will stick with you.

The fun always has to come to an end, but in this case it's just a shame it ends before the film does. With the sister's not really knowing where to take things, the film dwindles about, overstaying it's welcome by at least twenty minutes before springing a random ending that has little ties to what has gone before. The sisters also fail to fully explore some of the freakishly horrific opportunities they have opened up save one impressive center piece that wows considering the films meager budget. It could have been a lot more but I can't complain too much since it really is just picking on things.

That's not to say that they hold back at all, because there is plenty of scalpel action going on to make you shift uneasily in your seat, but why spoil the tension that you've already built up in your head by throwing severed body parts at the screen to the point that it becomes a joke? These sort of things just don't help and make the movie feel less powerful. Which leads into the other flaw, namely the ending which seems to be a bit of a let-down after building up so many plot threads.

The tension throughout the movie makes sure you keep on watching, it is clear that the Twisted Twins wanted to make a mark. And that mark has been set in my book. The movie ended up being very dreamy and thanks to some strong acting of the female characters it makes sure you won't forget this soon. Though the movie leaves us hanging and wanting more lets just hope we will see a lot more from them.