Mary Mason is a struggling medical student who is broke and
is losing interest in her surgical work. She goes to a local nightclub to find
work as a stripper as this is her last resort; the only way to get money now. Once
there she performs for the club owner until he is disturbed by his doormen as
one of his patrons has been shot. Being a dodgy club owner the police could not
be called so he enlisted Mary to attend to the injured man. After this Mary starts
performing underground surgery in many forms including being approached by a
Betty Boop lookalike to help her friend by performing unconventional surgery to
sew up a woman’s vagina and remove her nipples so she looks like a Barbie doll
and can feel like a doll naked without any of the pressure of being ‘indecent’
in a sense. All this for $10,000 with another $2000 on top of that just for turning
up to see the doll woman. Easy money for Mary. 
Written and directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska; the twisted
twins, this film creates and overwhelming feeling of empathy for Mary and as
she continues on her journey the audience roots her on. Getting some sort of
satisfaction out of one particular event; when her medical professor drugs her
and rapes her while filming it at a surgeon’s party. She enlists a club owner;
who has grown fond of Mary while she has performed underground surgery for him
and his heavy’s, to kidnap her professor. He is then seen duct taped to a table
and she tells him how she has found a new love for body modification and how
she is going to use him for a guinea pig. 
The viewer assumes he is dead and a later scene where she is
questioned by a police man also portrays this…. Until… she goes to see him. This
is where we see the true extent of Mary’ work; she had removed both arms, both
legs and then hung him on hooks by the skin in his back and had just left him
dangling by his skin for days. This is one of my favourite scenes in the film,
just for the surprise you get when Mary reveals to us the professor is not dead
but suffering just as he should.
American Mary won five awards at Screamfest in 2012 taking
home Best Actress for Katharine Isabelle’s role as the lovely Mary – a great performance
I might add; just as in Ginger Snaps.
Brian Pearson took home Best Cinematography. The film also won Best Makeup and Best Picture but the one
we all like to see is the award for Best Director in which Jen and Sylvia Soska
show us just how they have rebooted the horror genre with such a great film.
Along
with The Human Centipede films and
the up and coming Thanatomorphose
along with all the remakes and other horror releases this year we are sure in
for a treat.
This is one hell of a film both narratively and visually.
This is definitely one to keep in the collection and one and another one added
to the body horror genre. Check out the Soska blog "Penny Dreadful Diary" for more on the twisted twins of future horror.
http://twistedtwinsproductions.blogspot.co.uk/ and check them out on twitter https://twitter.com/twisted_twins.
