American Mary (2012)

Directed by: Jen Soska / Sylvia Soska
Country: Canada

Review: The Canadian horror film “American Mary” follows the grisly story of Mary Mason, once a brilliant medical student who dropped out of the course after being drugged and sexually abused by her medical school’s instructor. Before that, and allured by easy money, she had involved herself with the underworld of nightclubs and sex industry, and that fact allowed her to have the first illicit experience as surgeon when her services were required for a body modification. Impelled by an eagerness of revenge, Mary will fall into the dark world of torture and murder, at the same time that gains popularity online with clandestine surgeries, becoming known as Bloody Mary, a real expert of chop and sew. Since its earliest scenes that I didn’t feel connected with this story, where the surgical operations were the only motive to impress, and not for good reasons. The occasional fractions of humor thrown in by Soska sisters didn’t work out, and the same happened with the poorly written script, which was never able to excite or create any kind of fear. Some scenes of torture were very close to those presented in Takashi Miike’s “Ichi The Killer”, while the bizarre ‘dolls’ caused some apprehension due to their freaky aspect. This is a shallow study of a psychotic predator that can be compared to a terrible hangover caused by a few sour ‘Bloody Maries’!