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American Mary is a sleek and sexy film that is unpredictable and fairly unique. The story is dark, daring and entertaining, and solid production gives it clean and smooth look. It's body modification theme is edgy yet tasteful, and at times quite thought provoking. Katherine Isobelle plays the lead brilliantly; cold and brutal, but at the same time, empowering and elegant.

As for Faults, well, American Mary is a great film, but it peaks two-thirds of the way in, and by comparison it's ending feels a little timid and noncommittal.

Now, this is a bit over critical on my part, and it's only a minor flaw, but one that stands out as there are so few in the film. It's the cameo from the Soska sisters, I get it, I do, If I made a horror film, I'd want to be in it too, but this just wasn't the parts for them. Although I suspect they probably wrote it with themselves in mind. It's only a short scene but one with so much potential. The Soska sisters play big characters in a scene that could have been wonderfully unsettling, but instead its a bit flat and clumsy. The girls just didn't have the physical presence or screen confidence required to fill out the roles.

American Mary would have been excellent if it wasn't hindered by a few minor flaws and a weak ending. Overall, a delicate, but by no means tame, addition to the torture porn sub-genre. This film could easily become a horror cult classic, and deservingly so. I will be interested to see what the Soska sisters do next.

One of the most original horror films of recent years American Mary is a darkly comic gore- fest about revenge and back-street body modification.

Mary (Katherine Isabelle) is a promising and dedicated medical student who, like all students at one point or another in their studies, falls foul of financial difficulty. Lured into the world of body modification by the handsome prices offered by weirdos with a desire to make themselves more unique, Mary finds a way to continue her studies whilst earning some pretty good money. Wrongly assumed to have become a prostitute by her creepy professor she is invited to a sleazy surgeons party unaware that he has ulterior motives that make her new found profession start to take over her life.

American Mary is one of few horror films that's focus is on the female character's strength. Mary goes from being a hardworking model student to a psychotic body modification surgeon in a seedy strip club where she originally auditioned to work. The transformation from quiet student to headstrong surgical dominatrix after being violated is both empowering and contradictory of the traditional representation of women in horror. Katherine Isabelle is as charismatic as she is beautiful and she completely owns the character. She maintains an air of mystery which makes you constantly question her intentions towards the people she meets and her performance will keep you on your toes.

Darkly comedic and completely twisted American Mary is one damn good reason for women in the media to be more prevalent in the horror genre; there's no fluff in this film, no cliché crap and very little predictability. It has no eye-roll moments of exploitation and Isabelle's performance is empowering for women as well as easy on the eye for the men; a good balance that excludes neither gender from the audience like so many horror films do. The Soska sisters show their love for the horror genre and its brutality but also its more sexy side (which is weird considering all the blood, but there we go!) and American Mary is clearly a labour of love and not just some uncared for cliché torture porn that's been churned out as a money maker. The settings are seedy and dark and the sleazy underbelly of society is well portrayed but in an almost desirable fashion that enables us to see how easy it is for Mary to get sucked in to this world where money comes easily if you're willing to leave your comfort zone.

If you can ignore the occasionally questionable performances American Mary is an all round brilliant horror film that sucks you in to this brutal, seedy, sexy universe for 100 minutes and refuses to let your attention slip. What happens to Mary's professor is as genius as it is disturbing, but you will have to watch to find out for yourself.

Movie review:The twisted twins, Sylvia and Jen Soska, are back with their second full length feature. Now that people are taking notice to their talent, this time they have a budget (although they did need to take out a second mortgage to get the project off the ground). Anyway, this movie is about Mary, a brilliant med student studying to be a surgeon. Of course, money issues arise, as seems to always happen to college kids, so she decides stripping may be the way to go. While "interviewing" for the job, a strange occurrence puts here in the helm of a situation where she is needed to perform surgery at the club for quick cash. She soon realizes that maybe under the table surgical procedures may become a way to make money, so when a woman tracks her down after finding her resume at the club, she takes on a second patient. Mary finds herself juggling the task of student and surgeon on the side. Well, the life of being a student is crossed when she is invited to a "party" where she is the guest of honor, so to speak, and the world of the actual surgeons take a toll on her as she is drugged and raped. This incident pushes Mary over the edge and she takes matters into her own hands. This movie does a wonderful job weaving the tale of a woman that is forced into a life she wasn't prepared for, that of BME and revenge. It follows her downward spiral balancing reality with the virtually psychotic road she has chosen. The movie is much more polished than it's predecessor and it shows in the quality of camera-work and editing. The acting is very well done by Katherine Isabelle as Mary, and the other actors hold their own in their respective roles. Of course, the blood and gore is there, but not as extensive as their previous effort. It really wasn't needed for the story the twins wrote. American Mary had a limited theater release so you may or may not have had the chance to see it. If not, I again highly suggest that you see this movie. It is good to see new talent emerging with entertaining movies that don't follow the cookie cutter mold Hollywood has been giving us. 6.4/10 IMDb 6.0 . I very much anticipate the next release from these two.

Even at this early stage this interesting feature from Canada has the look of a future cult movie. It's decidedly left-field in subject matter. In it a female medical student with financial troubles turns to the shady world of underground surgeries. Before long she is carrying out more and more outlandish procedures. Pleasingly this one is directed by women. It's ridiculous in this day and age how rare it remains for women to be given the director's reigns. This film shows that the female vision can be very twisted and macabre indeed. The directors are identical twins Jen and Sylvia Soska who appear in a cameo as Eastern European sisters who crave bizarre body modifications. Their direction is very stylised but with grit where necessary. I'm not usually queasy when it comes to movies but I can honestly say that one surgical scene left me looking away. The third female presence is star Katherine Isabelle of Ginger Snaps fame. She is very good in a dark and sexy performance. She is a great anti-heroine and her revenge moment on a man who attacked her is one that had me inwardly cheering.

Seeing as this is a Canadian horror film perhaps a comparison with David Cronenberg is inevitable. But in this instance it's a fairly relevant one as in many ways this is another example of the body horror sub-genre. It's a film that combines contemporary sadistic horror with a view of an unusual subculture of people who modify their bodies through surgery. It isn't a very story driven film to be fair and it sometimes lacks a bit of overall dynamism but this is only a relatively minor observation and it is pleasingly original for the most part. Overall the feature could perhaps best be described as what would happen if Clive Barker was to direct a film that combined elements of Hard Candy and Audition.

Worth a watch if your into revenge/slasher movies. Well acted, sexy and dark. Enjoyed it!

There's no doubt she is by far my favorite actress and all started when I watched Ginger Snaps. In my opinion she is definitely an underrated actress who's acted in several movies but few of them have played such an important role in her acting career like this one and of course Ginger Snaps. American Mary is a well-developed movie that I very much liked it because it combines blood, flesh, drama and a good storyline with such a great acting from Katharine Isabelle besides I must confess that I'm totally delighted by her work, I really but really loved it. The movie is interesting from beginning to end, funny at times but mostly intense and what I liked the most was the evolution of Mary, at first you're gonna see a student, pretty and very smart living alone, working and doing little things in order to get some money but you'll end up seeing someone totally different, a girl with no fears, vindictive but mainly unstable. Well, in case I hadn't said enough I wanna add the fact that unlike the typical gore movies where you'll only see deaths and blood with no sense, American Mary has a very good storyline about revenge.

Now you might be wondering why after this review I gave only 8 stars out of 10 and that's because of the ending, I didn't like it but I'm not sure if another one could have been better. Anyway, it's worth watching.

This is an incredible story of revenge with a lot of gore mixed in. Would watch again.

After a very lackluster 2012 Frightfest Festival with only a very few memorable films and much straight to video crap this came as a sensational blast. After a great deal of stuff showing rape as fan boy entertainment this was brilliant. The Soska Sisters have added a feminist spin to a Cronenburgesque tale of body modification and surgery. There is a lot of stuff here about body image and The reason this film was so compelling a many but include: 1. Oscar worthy central performance which makes it the best Horror acting for ages. 2. Sheer unpredictability 3. A horror film by and about women 4. Real setting not a suburban Disneyland 5. Cool and stylish direction that thankfully restrained itself when you thought you were just about to witness something that might need a sick bag. 6. Make up and prosthetics that showed you stuff you definitely won't see in the average Horror. I could go on but you really need to see this if you like Horror and it deserves to be seen by a wider audience (although I doubt ti will succeed with a multiplex crowd)

Mary is a promising medical student who has a traumatic encounter with a surgeon who is her professor. Things turn bloody when after a few surgical body modifications to earn money, Mary seeks revenge on her attacker. The sadism is pretty stomach turning, and the film uses Schubert's Ave Maria once and Bach's version twice before it is over, a very strange choice of music, indeed. The premise is interesting and Katharine Isabelle is compelling in the lead. The patients seeking bizarre physical alterations is fairly disgusting. Jen and Sylvia Soska are the directors, and judging by this work, they are seriously disturbed women. The movie is extremely dark and it kept me interested to the last scene which was a bit disappointing. As a thriller, it is slightly above average, and a 6/10.

I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of gory horror American Mary followed by a Q&A session with the co-writers and directors, Jen and Sylvia Soska, and star Katharine Isabelle. Okay, scrap the 'fortunate'. And the scariest parts of the evening were the claim by the Soska twins that "Some people have said this is the best film they have ever seen!" and the bloke who told us all about the operations he was due to have on his legs before enquiring from the trio if he should go ahead.

There's very little good to say about American Mary. I entered the screening room with high hopes and departed wide-eyed and dismayed. It's embarrassing to laugh at unintentionally funny moments in a film but there were plenty of them. American Mary is indeed shocking, but not in a good way.

American Mary is clearly a vanity project from two girls whose executive producer parents apparently (part) funded the project. Two girls who have watched Human Centipede once too often. Two girls who are trying reeeeally hard to be rebellious and shock the world by doing naughty things on screen and swearing pointlessly and with embarrassing amounts of emphasis on each expletive just so we get how rude they're being. Such pain! Even in the Q&A they tried desperately hard to shock; the first sentence out of their mouths referring to some scallywag as a f****** c*** and then repeated, over-egged obscenities punctuating inane responses to toadying fanboy questions. Oh, to have been shocked and offended. That would have been a joy compared to the embarrassment of watching three children showing off to a roomful of adults. There's an old adage: If you want to be seen, stand up; if you want to be heard, speak up; if you want to be respected, shut up. I saw, I heard, I departed and I averted my gaze.

American Mary is a horror flick about a disenchanted surgery intern, Mary (Isabelle) with financial worries who is sucked into the very dark side of plastic surgery aka body modification aka freakish mutilation. It starts out as a way for Mary to earn money (via torture and creating Barbie lookalikes) then becomes a hobby and finally a way to exact revenge and satisfy her perverse whims.

I don't have a problem with the subject matter; it's great to be challenged. I have a problem with the dire script, the god-awful cod accents (the worst of which are from the Soska twins who cast themselves as, um, freakish twins) and the horrendous sound mix that changes mid-scene (!) and at one point had us all looking over our left shoulders to work out which member of the audience was moaning, only to realize it was the character off-screen in an entirely different direction! Random scenes are plonked into the film to separate others and to imply the passage of time. A cringeworthy scene in which Mary learns some news of her grandmother prompts further smothered guffaws and is just one more reason to condemn this amateurish tripe. This is just one long, clumsy, pointless film that really wants to be offensive but succeeds in being virtually irrelevant.

Certainly there are a couple of moments when the stomach twinges with the implied gore, but mostly the horror is in the performance. Paula Lindeberg is so ridiculously excessive in her performance as the plasticized Ruby Realgirl with her squeaky voice and clapping hands that Isabelle comes across as subtlety incarnate. Antonio Cupo plays strip joint owner Billy Barker as though auditioning to play Mark Ruffalo and when John Emmet Tracy wanders on to the screen with intended sincerity as Detective Dolor, the thud was the sound of many jaws bouncing on the floor. Why does an American detective in an American film set in America have a 'British' accent? Well, according to Soska and Soska it's because they wanted their detective to sound exactly like their hero Clive Barker. It would appear no-one told them Barker is a Liverpudlian who now speaks with an LA drawl. Yup, that's about the level of American Mary.

So why does American Mary earn two stars? Because the art direction triumphs, the set is pretty, the principal prosthetics are perfect and Mary's costumes get progressively sexier as the film rolls on. Costume designer Jayne Mabbott is by far and away the star of American Mary and by the time Mary dons her red surgeon's gown in a reference to Dead Ringers, Mabbott has made her the most erotic murderess on the big screen.

Perhaps next time Soska and Soska are let lose with a camera they should be 'encouraged' to spend their budget on a few more talents like Mabbott.

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This movie grew on me. It's great fun watching poor Mary (Katharine Isabelle from Ginger Snaps) transition from an overworked, money-deficient med student into a hardened lass with an affinity for slicing and dicing. Hey, got trouble paying for tuition and other bills? No sweat, let's do some body modification surgery on people! Fun for everyone! This is a pretty gory, gruesome movie, and *maybe* it ends a little too neatly for my tastes, but it's well executed. The directors also cameo as special (and creepy) clients of Mary.

Modern imitation of some of David Cronenbergs' filmography is nonetheless interesting and watchable on its own terms. It's really more of a drama than a horror film, with touches of gore and dark comedy, and is slow paced enough that it may have some viewers fumbling for their remotes. It plunges the audience into a world of sordid and off putting characters in a tale of sex and fetishism. Ultimately, it works its way towards a somewhat conventional finish, but getting there is still an amusing enough experience.

The lovely Katharine Isabelle, best known for her role as Ginger in the "Ginger Snaps" series, stars as Mary, a promising med student in desperate need of cash. So she accepts the offer from nightclub owner Billy (Antonio Cupo) to patch up a mangled associate of his. This leads to offers from other people, people who are into radical body modification, to perform a variety of "underground surgery". As Mary is immersed in this world more and more, it really takes a toll on her well-being.

If it weren't for Ms. Isabelle, who looks extremely sexy in a variety of outfits, this would have been a little harder to get through. She delivers an engaging lead performance, and is believable throughout Mary's personality arc. It is fun to see Mary take her new business so seriously that she dismisses one potential patient who's willing to settle for something as mundane as piercings. And we do get to see a number of individuals who've had some pretty nasty things done to themselves.

Some people may want to note that at least the gore in this movie is serving the story and never *becoming* the whole reason for its existence. The effects are generally well done.

Sibling directors Jen and Sylvia Soska (who also cameo in "American Mary" as the German twins) do have some potential, so it will be intriguing to watch the progress of their careers.

Six out of 10.

Co-writers/directors Jen and Sylvia Soska, the Twisted Twins, have created a highly stylized, exquisite entry in the horror subgenre known as the women's revenge film. This is the bloody nightmare an angry young female surgeon might have after watching "I Spit on Your Grave."

We open on an extreme closeup shot of lovely Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle) in her kitchen, sewing a turkey with careful precision. It isn't Thanksgiving, though, and there are no guests arriving. She's just practicing her surgery skills as a budding med student. But when professional relationships run afoul, fowl just isn't an adequate substitute for the real thing. And just when you think you know where the film is going, our hearts are touched by Mary's benevolent foray into a world few are aware of. So begins the occasionally chilling, often twisted odyssey of "American Mary."

There's much praise to go around for this talented ensemble cast but, more than anyone, it's the exquisite Katherine Isabelle who brings the Soskas' script to life. Isabelle so inhabits Mary that she creates a totally original, unique character that raises the bar for all the actors around her. The reversal of roles in this narrative is clever and crafty. To be more specific would reveal too much. Things are not as they seem as stereotypes are shattered at every step of the way.

The look of "American Mary" is a study in the almost-forgotten techniques of creative filmmaking. Single point lighting is used liberally, as Mary moves in and out of the shadows of the strange new world she's created. More than in most modern films, the color palette is central to subliminal psychological changes transmitted to the viewer. Black, the color of death, and red, the color of love (and blood), dominate in key scenes and trigger subtle emotional cues that slyly blend in with the milieu.

Peter Allen's original score magnificently balances contrapuntally with the gruesome on screen action. Lush classical strains underscore unimaginable real-life horrors. We're watching a ballet of death. The more terrifying the images, the more charming and delightful is the opera in our heads. The beauty of the soundtrack belies the ugliness beneath.

"American Mary" boasts some of the most stunning camera-work of the festival. Cinematographer Brian Pearson exhibits such passion for the material that every frame is like a painting. Editor Bruce MacKinnon allows the film to proceed patiently, another departure from the typical genre production. Locations are like characters unto themselves, and the set design reflects that with tremendous attention to detail that allows the photography and music to work together with the backdrop to help propel the story.

This is true art, rarely seen in cinema today. It's a slightly more civilized, 21st century take on torture porn with high production values and a killer narrative but there's much more here than meets the eye. Yes, it's hard to watch at times, but those who appreciate movies the way they used to be made won't want to turn away. In "American Mary" we gorily discover that hell hath no fury like a female surgeon scorned.

Female directors are rare. Female horror directors even rarer. Female twin sister directors who do horror movies? Well we found one pair and the movie I had the pleasure to watch was really good. The idea as it is might not be original (especially if you follow the media, there are some cases of this beauty craze in Russia and other countries), but it does fit fine into this story.

Plus we have a great female lead. You might feel that her drive is slowed down at one point mid-through the film, but that would mean you're missing the point. It's more character driven than story driven. And it works that way. Social commentary and other things included of course. Watch it if you can

Okay, so after reading and hearing some good reviews, I finally got the time to view this film. It was a very slow start and the acting seemed very wooden and amateurish to say the least. The film has no atmosphere and was not engaging at all. I had to check twice if I was actually watching the same film for which I had read the reviews just to make sure I wasn't watching some cheep parody or knock-off. I find it astonishing how anyone sees anything in this film, the only thing I can rate about this film is the theme of body-mod and objectification. Everything else scores a big fat ZERO. Finally, horror is meant to be scary or frightening, this was horrifyingly rubbish, and frighteningly boring.

The body modification sub culture is sort of the like the old time carnival freak show. People surgically mold, sculpt and pierce their way into something else but the person on the inside stays the same. The 2012 film "American Mary" features Katherine Isabelle, the breakout star of 2001's "Ginger Snaps", as a Med student who finds herself performing body mod surgeries that she finds out is quite good at.

Being a poor college student Mary Mason answer's a Craig's List style ad for a sleazy strip club owned by an even sleazier younger guy. During her "interview" something goes terribly wrong outside and Mary if offered $5,000 to do some impromptu surgery on some guy. She is freaked out but does it. Word gets around to the underground body mod culture and she is approached by some pretty strange characters to help them finish their work. Isabelle plays Mary perfectly, she is desperate enough too take these strange jobs, but is still grounded and very professional. She provides a desperately needed service to the extremely rich who believe she is an artist who works in the medium of skin.

She is first pursued by Beatrice who has transformed his/her body into Betty Boop. After completing a surgery on her for $10,000, her friend Ruby comes calling next. Rudy is transforming her body to look like an anatomically incorrect Barbie Doll and has a few things cut off and one thing sewn up. The film has a darkly comedic thread throughout. Ruby, Beatrice and the others are all portrayed as good people on the inside, but different on the out. While the exact opposite is true about the other so-called normal people.

Back at school Mary is invited to a swanky party thrown by one of the big shot surgeons, but she has unknowing just stepped into the lions den. She is drugged and raped by the surgeon, but little does he know the unique skills that Mary has recently acquired. Mary exacts swift and painful revenge upon the Doc. Making him her test subject for new procedures, keeping him alive and aware the whole time.

"American Mary" is full of interesting unique characters and well played throughout. It was written and directed by the Soska twins, Jen and Sylvia, who also play parts as customers to Mary. They bring a real sense of authenticity and care to the film, that would have been lost had it been done by anybody else.