American Mary Review (Film, 2013) The Archives
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Content warning: violence against women, sexual assault, gore
American Mary is a wild film. It’s a quiet character study of a poor medical student turned extreme body modifier. It’s a modern spin on Frankenstein with multiple Doctor/Monster connections. It’s a revenge/exploitation film from a distinctly feminist perspective with only one clear villain turned into an empathetic figure. It’s a freak-out gore film with very little blood and a social satire that points at the absurdity of human beauty standards without judging anyone for falling in line or rebelling against those standards of beauty.
There’s a lot that can be said for this bizarre tribute to body modification by identical twin writers/directors/actors Jen and Sylvia Soska. American Mary is not shy or safe in any way. The Soskas are clearly knowledgeable about the genre and know what they want to create. They also refuse to give you any easy answers about their subject.
One of the more telling sequences in the film is a montage of Dr. Mary’s patients when she fully embraces her new identity as an extreme body modification artist. Real people with real body modifications pose for the camera, showing off their split tongues, body implants, and scarification. Mary, originally so disturbed by her first foray into underground cosmetic procedures, is smiling at the joy she’s brought to her patients. The Soska Sisters are not judging the clients; they’re celebrating them.
It’s very hard to find the balance in a horror film when going into a less-exposed subculture. Dee Snyder’s excellent horror film Strangeland, for example, covers a lot of the same body modification procedures, but uses them as the source of horror. You’re meant to be shocked and offended by the idea of covering the human body in piercings and scars because it’s not normal.
However, in American Mary, body modification is the great humanizing force. There’s a recurring sentiment of connecting to your true self. These clients sincerely want to have horns or designer scars. Who are we to judge them? They’re human beings not causing any harm to anybody else. It’s better they go to a skilled professional to achieve these dreams than a random person who might leave them scarred or disfigured for life. It’s not our place to judge them for not wanting to look like everyone else.
Compare that to the few people in the film who do not voluntarily go under the knife. Mary is tricked by one of her professors and the surgeon overseeing her medical residency into attending a party where everyone is liberally using date rape drugs and filming the results. That professor is her first client. She performs the surgery in the strip club owned by the man who tricked her into getting into extreme body modification at all. Mary herself starts to become more distant, literally pulling back from society into a transformed warehouse space as her home and office. You don’t feel too bad if something happens to the characters who pushed Mary to this point, but you do feel terrible if the clients who just wanted to be happy are threatened or hurt in any way.
This is not to say that the surgery itself isn’t meant to be disturbing. The greatest trick pulled off by American Mary is the balancing act between empowering people who want to connect with their ideal selves and showing off how scary surgery itself can be. When the scalpel hits the flesh and the blood starts to run, you’re meant to squirm. Same with your initial introduction to characters who had procedures before they met Dr. Mary. The makeup effects from MastersFX are disturbing in the best way possible. The bad plastic surgery looks believably bad and the masterful procedures from Dr. Mary look straight out an educational series about elective medical procedures.
Horror favorite Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) is perfectly cast as the increasingly disconnected Mary. Even in full mad scientist mode, you can always tell something else is going on from behind the surgical mask. Like the clients she treats, Isabelle’s Mary instantly gains confidence once she steps into the identity she was always meant to have. It’s only when she hits challenges she never anticipated that her newfound confidence wavers.
American Mary is the kind of horror film that should be watched, shared, and discussed. Jen and Sylvia Soska hit on some very important concepts using body modification as a canvas for social commentary. There are so few horror films that refuse to cast judgment on the antihero, let alone everyday people choosing to live outside the ideals of beauty demanded by pop culture. The true triumph of American Mary is the creation of a film with a positive message about self-fulfillment that is still utterly terrifying in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
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