Rapid Review: American Mary (2012)

“I quit med school today, that shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I’m changing specialties Dr. Grant. Have you ever heard of body modification?”
– Mary Mason

SYNOPSIS: The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called ‘freakish’ clients. – via IMDB

I must say, this duly impressed me. The first time I saw it, I went in blind; I love it when I can manage to watch a movie with as little knowledge as possible. American Mary was fresh and new, and I liked that. It was a small budget independent film, and it looked amazing. The movie is gorgeous, shot phenomenally and looks absolutely stunning every step of the way. Even upon repeat viewing, the movie is well worth the watch. It has everything I love in it. The story was also something different, and Katharine Isabelle portrays Mary fantastically – the struggling but hopeful student that suffers a brutality and moves on to other things. You can actually track the changes in her, and see how it all affects her. Isabelle rocked that transformation. I thought that Billy’s feelings for her were sweet in that totally messed-up-but-they-are-perfect-for-each-other kind of way. The violence was heavy in this, and the script was solid. Billy’s bodyguard Lance (that sort of ended up Mary’s bodyguard) was very cool, wrong life, wrong direction, not a totally godawful guy, highly entertaining. However, it must be said that all these characters are horribly broken and damaged in some way or other, and that is why they have their own little way of doing things. This movie was bizarre and had you wondering what the hell quite a few times. Everything just worked for me in this movie, despite some of the complaints some people have (each to their own). I also just want to take a moment to mention the shoes Mary Mason wore… I was in love, really. Yes, there we have it, my total chick moment. Aside from that, American Mary touts buckets of blood, plenty gore, pretty cool characters, super awesome makeup work, a twisted premise and the perfect run time. I thought the ending was particularly well suited, as well. This is definitely a goodie to watch, and something I would highly recommend!

PS: Aside from all that, how awesome is this?!

@SporadicZoe Why thank you!! You have incredible taste.

— Jen/Sylvia Soska (@twisted_twins) March 13, 2015