American Mary Review

I really don't know where to start when talking about American Mary. It is a movie by the Soska Sisters (people I had never heard of) and starring a bunch of people I don't know. I only heard about the movie because I troll around the internet every once and a while and find movies that I think sound interesting. Of those movies, I usually watch about 30% of them. And of that 30%, I usually like 10% of them. This was one of those few movies that I really liked. 

American Mary is the story of a promising young medical student, Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle), and her decent into the world of body modification. I don't want to say much more about the plot, because I really think that anymore would be spoilers, but I think that should be enough to get you interested. 

I really think that this movie had a lot working for it. The key, in my opinion, was how well the script matched the visual style of the film. The Soska Sisters clearly knew exactly what they wanted to do with this movie while they were writing it, because it really shows. I think they also knew exactly how to cut this film to take it away from the Saw/Hostel genre of torture porn and keep it in the vein of horror thriller. For this being their third (?) feature, I was really impressed with how well they melded the scripting, filming, and editing of the film. I hope to see them do some more films in this genre, because I genuinely think they could make some game-changers. 

The acting in this movie was just...odd. I don't mean that in a bad way, per se, just that I can't quite put my finger on it. I thought that Katharine Isabelle was phenomenal as the lead, and that her transition from perfect med student to insane underground surgeon was absolutely perfect, but the rest of the cast was kind of hit or miss. I don't think it particularly matters, though, because this film really focuses on Mary, and that was the only strong performance they really needed to nail this movie. 

The writing on this movie was probably it's weakest point. That isn't to say that the script was bad, just that it wasn't as strong as the rest of the film. The story was excellent, but I think it was the dialogue that threw me off at points. Sometimes the dialogue just didn't match the scene that was taking place, or just felt disjointed. I think that this was a good effort from the Soska Sisters, but could have been a little more cohesive. 

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This movie really fit the genre of horror thriller. It really hinged on the perfect performance of Mary Mason by Katharine Isabelle. The Soska Sisters have really made a splash with this movie, and I hope to see more from them in the future (though, they may want to stop acting...) Overall, an excellent character piece with some great characters.

Writing: 6/10

Directing: 7/10

Acting: 7/10

Pacing: 6.5/10

Rewatchability: 6.5/10

Score: 6.6/10