American Mary: Film Review
8:39 AM PDT 5/30/2013 by Frank Scheck
The Bottom Line
This ragged, low-budget horror film fails to live up to the potential of its creepy premise.Directors-Screenwriters
Jen Soska, Sylvia SoskaCast
Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren
If Ryan Murphy had crossed over his television series Nip/Tuck with his American Horror Story for a very special episode, the results would resemble American Mary, the latest effort by Jen and Sylvia Soska,
otherwise known as “The Twisted Twins.” The sibling directors certainly
live up to their moniker with this gross-out tale centered on the
supposedly burgeoning underground culture of body modification.
The title character, played by Katharine Isabelle (no stranger to the genre, after her starring roles in the Ginger Snaps
horror films) is a young medical student whose need for money leads her
to pursuing a gig as a stripper. It turns out that her talents lay less
with unveiling her well-proportioned body than in providing emergency
medical care to the club’s more unlucky patrons.
One of the witnesses to Mary’s medical intervention is Beatress (Tristan Risk), who, in one of the film’s creepiest conceits, has had herself surgically modified to look exactly like Betty Boop. Requesting Mary’s services for yet another procedure, she introduces the financially desperate medical student to a bizarre world in which people will pay big money to endure such operations as removing sex organs, splitting a tongue in two and--for a pair of lesbian sisters (played by the filmmakers)--conjoining them into Siamese twins.
Eventually Mary’s lucrative practice takes an even darker turn after she’s sexually assaulted by her abusive medical supervisor (David Lovgren) and decides to take a particularly nasty form of revenge that takes full advantage of her newly honed skills.
While the film’s relatively novel premise is certainly a refreshing change of pace from the glut of horror films dealing with vampires, werewolves and endless serial killers, the co-directors, who made a name for themselves with their rather less subtly titled debut effort Dead Hookers in a Trunk, don’t yet have the technical chops to be playing in territory previously exploited by the likes of David Cronenberg and Pedro Almodovar, not to mention such early classics as Eyes Without a Face.
Featuring murky visuals, an even murkier narrative that lamely sputters to its conclusion, and frequently amateurish performances—the effectively low-key Isabelle is a notable exception—the film never explores its undeniably disturbing issues with enough thematic depth to compensate for its ragged execution.
Opens May 31 (XLrator Media)
Production: American Mary Productions, Evolution Pictures
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren, Paula Lilndberg, Clay St. Thomas, John Emmet Tracy, Twan Holliday, Nelson Wong, Sylvia Soska, Jen Soska
Directors/screenwriters: Jen Soska, Syliva Soska
Producers: Evan Tylor, John Curtis
Executive producers: Kathryn Griffiths, Tom Raycove, Angela Towle, Riaz Tyab
Director of photography: Brian Pearson
Editor: Bruce MacKinnon
Production designer: Tony Devenyi
Costume designer: Jayne Mabbott
Composer: Peter Allen
Rated R, 103 min.
One of the witnesses to Mary’s medical intervention is Beatress (Tristan Risk), who, in one of the film’s creepiest conceits, has had herself surgically modified to look exactly like Betty Boop. Requesting Mary’s services for yet another procedure, she introduces the financially desperate medical student to a bizarre world in which people will pay big money to endure such operations as removing sex organs, splitting a tongue in two and--for a pair of lesbian sisters (played by the filmmakers)--conjoining them into Siamese twins.
Eventually Mary’s lucrative practice takes an even darker turn after she’s sexually assaulted by her abusive medical supervisor (David Lovgren) and decides to take a particularly nasty form of revenge that takes full advantage of her newly honed skills.
While the film’s relatively novel premise is certainly a refreshing change of pace from the glut of horror films dealing with vampires, werewolves and endless serial killers, the co-directors, who made a name for themselves with their rather less subtly titled debut effort Dead Hookers in a Trunk, don’t yet have the technical chops to be playing in territory previously exploited by the likes of David Cronenberg and Pedro Almodovar, not to mention such early classics as Eyes Without a Face.
Featuring murky visuals, an even murkier narrative that lamely sputters to its conclusion, and frequently amateurish performances—the effectively low-key Isabelle is a notable exception—the film never explores its undeniably disturbing issues with enough thematic depth to compensate for its ragged execution.
Opens May 31 (XLrator Media)
Production: American Mary Productions, Evolution Pictures
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren, Paula Lilndberg, Clay St. Thomas, John Emmet Tracy, Twan Holliday, Nelson Wong, Sylvia Soska, Jen Soska
Directors/screenwriters: Jen Soska, Syliva Soska
Producers: Evan Tylor, John Curtis
Executive producers: Kathryn Griffiths, Tom Raycove, Angela Towle, Riaz Tyab
Director of photography: Brian Pearson
Editor: Bruce MacKinnon
Production designer: Tony Devenyi
Costume designer: Jayne Mabbott
Composer: Peter Allen
Rated R, 103 min.
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