American Mary is a Canadian horror film directed by the Soska Sisters. The plot follows young surgeon Mary (Katherine Isabelle), who turns to performing extreme body modification surgery as a side hustle to make extra money.
This feels very much more exploitation esque than The Sisters other work, before or after, and as a result it feels harder to swallow. The premise is basically a rape revenge film, though done through a slightly different lens.
Your enjoyment of this film will come down to how squeamish you are, if you can stand live surgery and enjoy seeing people sliced into and stuff like that then you will enjoy it, as it is a very engaging watch. However, if you fall into the other side and find such subject matter hard to watch then you will be put off. I fall into the latter category.
Katherine Isabelle is a strong lead, we buy her turn to the dark side, even as it extends beyond torturing her attacker. Even though she arguably lives long enough to be the villain of her own story, she is still very rootable and crucially she is fascinating to watch develop and go on that journey.
Overall, there is a lot of good here, but because I can’t stand live surgery and that sort of subject matter I was off put, but that is a personal preference on my part. If you that doesn’t bother you and you like grindhouse exploitation style films then you will enjoy this too
Pros.
Katherine Isabelle
An interesting character arc
Darkly funny
Cons.
It is hard to watch
The subject matter will be divisive to some
3/5
Reviewed by Luke
It’s an interesting movie. I don’t consider it a “horror” movie. Maybe not in the traditional sense. More like macabre.
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