American Mary
★★★★
Dir: Jen & Sylvia Soska
(2012)
This bitingly funny subversive horror film may be low on budget but it wields its ideas like a well sharpened scalpel using gender, sex and subculture in a way that even David Cronnenberg would be proud of. At its helm are Jen and Sylvia Soska (also known as the Twisted Sisters) who debuted their schlock b-movie Dead Hooker in a Trunk back in 2009. This is far more polished and way more serious, in fact in comparison it's a beast of film, dealing smartly with a young surgeon named Mary (a great turn by Katherine Isabelle) who has had enough of her abusive professional male counter parts and finds a less orthodox channel for her growing skills as a doctor.
Horror fans may be well of aware of American Mary but with only a short run in select cinemas (despite its praise at numerous festivals including FrightFest) the film has been difficult to market. Not bloody or action packed enough to be pigeon holed with the Hostels of the world, it's easy to see why the film has gone unnoticed both at the box office and on DVD but there is much here to admire. Admittedly on the surface it seems almost self-indulgent at first, a smug knowing trip in to the body modification world that the fetish loving identical twin directors are clearly fans of but the film also deftly handles a parable for women working in a predominately male populated field; Be it surgery or film making.
Isabelle (star of the excellent werewolf film Ginger Snaps) is a wild and intelligent performer and her Mary is both equally sympathetic and terrifying as the film descends into a world of bizarre and extreme surgery, revenge and tragedy. The directors themselves appear as twins intent on having their right arms swapped and horns implanted in their foreheads. There's also a woman who wants herself cosmetically styled on Betty Boop (another smart jab by the sisters at the objectification of women) and even a girl who asks Mary to perform the final, horrific part of her "dollification".
Though there are times when the anger and action of both the directors and their character borders on violent cliché and the the tone and social impetus of American Mary is strong, complex and original. Fellow Canadian Cronnenberg, as the granddaddy of body horror, is forever present of course but this prickly little story is the kind of interesting stab at gender identity and equality that makes the odd new horror film important and challenging.
