Movie Review: American Mary

Katharine Isabelle as Mary Mason in American Mary, by Jen & Sylvia Soska

Despite living on a film noir budget, I broke down and ordered American Mary from the Amazon UK. It's a horror movie made by one of the most fascinating collaborations, Jen and Sylvia Soska, the Twisted Twins who are lifelong horror fans. This would be their second movie, their first being not nearly as ambitious. The Soska's illustrate a principle my biology teacher called inclusive fitness, but that's a subject for a different horror movie.

I'm ready for terror.

It arrived three days before the due date, and just on time for the weekend. For bravery, I mixed myself a double Active Vodka (that's cheap vodka and ActivWater).

At the end, I felt like I'd been holding my breath for two hours while riding the world's longest roller coaster blindfolded-- and I still felt the vodka flush.

Here's why: this was a unique plot. I couldn't predict at any time what was going to happen. Plot points seemed to happen out of the blue. Though I saw the trailers, saw a clip, read reviews and interviews, it kept me in awe.  

The film is about a student surgeon, Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle), who finds herself unable to pay for necessities. She does what many women today do; she  turns to the sex industry. She naively brings her resume to a stripper gig, letting her prospective boss know she's a surgeon. This leads to her doing underground surgery to save his assistant's life. She's rescued financially but the experience leaves her shocked. Soon, she ends up specializing in underground body modification.

Isabelle depicts Mary with a performance of pure, scintillating ice. Isabelle has been a favorite of mine since I saw Ginger Snaps (where she played Ginger, which is what led me to follow this production). I believed, prior to this film, that she knew how to act with her eyes. She's confirmed that. Mary is cold character, but from the first, her eyes promise a lot more going on underneath. The few times in the film where the surface cracks made me love the character. There was much more sensitive person underneath. Then there's Isabelle's sex appeal, underscored by some great costuming and sultry voice that reminded me of Lauren Bacall. Mary is a character who exudes sex but is too serious for it.

And she's known for her bedside manner.

 Mary starts out worshiping her surgical instructors, too awed with them as role models to notice that how reptilian they are, morally and physically. (Their snide faces are uglier than the one Mary works on. I'm not sure that was deliberate, but her blindness to their wickedness was.)  She's obedient and ruthless in trying to impress them.

When her professor exploits her right when she thinks she's gained acceptance, she turns that ruthlessness against him. Like a villain in any other film, she captures him, subdues him, and tells him exactly what she's going to do in calculated, abstracted detail. Unlike most films, this isn't near the end, and no hero barges in to stop her. (I hope that's not a spoiler.) Any real hero would have taken their time to save that guy anyway.

The doctor is in.

 You later get to see the Cenabitian hell she creates for him. It is a crescendo of horror. As her character develops, people who know how savage she can be are afraid of her. She becomes more blood-thirsty, before she finds some sense of empathy toward the end. The way she expresses it is so awkward that you might mistake it for taunting, but no, it was sincere. As you might expect, the film has a bloody ending, but you probably won't expect how artistic and profound it is. 

The script has a lot of subtext about objectification, where one woman who wants to look like a Barbie Doll so she wouldn't be objectified. There's more in Mary's struggle in med school and her dropping out of legitimate medicine. It depicts the death of the American Dream, especially for women, who are pushed toward the sex industry because they can't afford an education, and then are treated with contempt by "legitimate" society. There's something criminal about that in the, US where there's a looming doctor shortage, that students have to starve while lenders and universities profit.

Isabelle receives first-rate support. Tristan Risk is a standout as Beatrice, a person modified to look and sound like Betty Boop. Risk performs from under a rather immobile mask, which makes her look like an automaton. However, using her voice and body she still projects a sweet character. She somehow brings Beatrice's disturbing features out of the uncanny valley and even succeeds to make her sexy. She and Isabelle have a lot of scenes together, and Risk holds Isabelle even. A burlesque performer in Vancouver, Risk was an inspired choice for the role.

Tristan Risk as Beatrice from Toontown

Tristan Risk not wearing Beatrice

 Antonio Cupo plays Billy Barker, the club owner. In every scene he's in after the first, you know Barker isn't a copy of a Martin Scorsese goon. The twins gave him a difficult role, as a thug and creep whose heart melts for Mary. His acting bridges the paradox between tough and sensitive that otherwise might have looked incongruous.

He's got Mary on his mind.

 A quirky choice of casting was John Emmet Tracy as Detective Dolor. I don't find a detective in America with a British accent to be unbelievable. It can happen, so it happens. It would have worked better if there was just one line from Mary noting how unusual it was, and she might have asked about it. Still, just don't let yourself get thrown about the setting when you hear it.  Besides that, his performance works, but I don't believe for a minute he was telling Mary the truth.

The twins have a cameo at a pivotal point as sinister German twins. I'll let Germans judge the accents. Their scenes might or might not work for you, but it sure looks like they had a great time.

Die Verdreht Zwillingen

 Sylvia and Jen Soska have done a splendid job on writing and directing considering their only other film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk was made on about a 40th of the budget (my estimate) and was a takeoff on Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's 2007 collaboration, Grindhouse. Even after film school, not too many people could have turned out something nearly as excellent as American Mary. They've attracted a talented crew to their cause, judging by the cinematography, the makeup, the costumes and the sound. The film looks beautiful, making great use of color, and is artistic even with it's use of blood. The sound is sometimes mixed to both give you a hint and confuse you. Sometimes moans seem to come from the wrong direction, but it's not an error.

It's not perfect. The script bends over backward to make lowlife characters likeable. There's a scene where Mary gets a call about somebody's restaurant closing, and I have to see it again to figure out who that was and how it connects to the rest of the story. A part of the dialog appears to drift at the end where Mary suddenly asks Billy if "he needs backup for this." For what? I was lost.

However, when the movie shines it's both terrifying and beautiful, and it shines often. Usually somebody's second try making an independent film ends up with rampant with errors. Sylvia and Jen Soska have a great start to their career(s), American Mary, on the other hand, looks like an underground classic, and perhaps in the Internet Age, that actually means a classic.

It's right now available on Amazon UK. It's not due to be released in the US until September 2013. no word whether that's video only or theatrical.

You don't want to make her angry. Buy the video!