American Mary (2013)

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The film starts out in a very interesting manner but completely dies through time. The extreme overall creepiness kinds of gets the toll on the spectator and kills the novelty. Without taking into consideration that it really lacks any real action scenes. It becomes then quite repetitive and the end completely reflects that decline I believe.Katharine Isabelle is extremely cold, cynical and quite disturbing. That's a start. Her psychology evolves from being a "normal woman" to a total 'controlled' psycho or even a serial killer to say the least. But I hardly could really differentiate when she was her 'normal' self in the first part of the movie and before that dramatic event for her from these phases of psychopathy. Either her acting was too perfectly suited for the film, which I think it was at certain phases or either it was really uni-dimensional bordering boring at times. At such a point that her true emotions were rarely convincing actually, or if she had any. In other words, she cold as boiling water when she is a lovable princess and still in a similar state when she is in lock-down psychopath mode so, it really does ask the question why did they really try to paint out these two versions about her ? Was just to really build the cheap scenario ? The focus on her life pre- psychopathy is like 3 minutes of the film and there is like literally no build up towards Jekyll.Overall the movie appears totally creepy, disturbing at times no only with the surgical practices that she did but also the certain characters who are literally just weirdos. The combination of 'Mozart'- like music and creepiness tries to pull it almost as an art but not so much.Concentrating on the detective, John Emmet Tracy, his role is actually quite laughable. A true filler for the poor scenario. Casper's invisibility cape was working full time there especially when the end of the film is taken into account. I'm not sure why they actually played this card when they did not expand it to its full powers. The relationship between Katharine Isabelle and John Emmet Tracy is poor, falls completely flat especially when you as a spectator expects a build-up tension, conflict [...] none of it. Which makes me say that he was a complete filler and a cheap excuse to try and diversify the scenario.This film did not really know where it wanted to go. Full vengeance mode, in that case they should have created a better build-up (something which makes me remember Kill Bill, a reference) or a crazy serial killer and in that situation I would have expected a better relationship between the serial killer and authority. And if it was purely about decadence, then the psychology of Katharine Isabelle is somewhat well represented, though, again, you feel that there's always still that rope holding them back and preventing them from really pushing the movie far.Another poor relationship is the one between Katharine Isabelle and Antonio Cupo. You always had the impression that they were to fall in love or have a relationship. Certain scenes make you even believe that she was in love with him, yet, again, all this is really very poorly developed.So my overall and final feeling is American Mary is tame. The relationship between essential characters is left to be desired. Her acting was one-dimensional. But, it had potential which was very badly developed.

Shame too, because the actings fine, the gore is rather well done, and the sensual/twisted edge works too. "American Mary" is borderline b-movie marathon worthy, and will probably eek onto the list because of the starving genre. The films set-up is solid, but right when these characters started to show some remorse, it got interesting, and Then it ended.. A bit abruptly and unsatisfyingly too. The two female leads saved a shoestring/somewhat inept script, and the film isn't particularly stylish considering its flashy subject matter.The rape scene and the torture scenes are the most effective scenes so it didn't drop the ball completely. I'm not a "it's great" or "it's horrible" guy on this one. "Mary" should keep fans of the horror genre pacified, but there have been better examples with lesser acclaim(see Hostel). It's alright. Could b worth a re watch down the road 60/100 again the two leads make this worthwhile, but not mind-blowing.Defo needed more character exploration, a better script, a bit more in the style/music department. Could have been great.

There is something just so bloody good about a horror film that is nice and gory. "Ginger Snaps" alum Katharine Isabelle returns to the big screen as a medical student named Mary. Barely destitute but desperate, Mary answers an ad for a strip club, but is interrupted to perform surgery for a large sum of money. She begins in this vein as a very innocent and frightened young woman, who doesn't understand the world she is thrust into, but a thirst for revenge quickly spirals her into a realm of darkness and fury. This film screams for me to love it, and I do easily, thanks to its insatiable blood fest, grotesque imagery of surgeries, Katharine Isabelle's cold and conniving performance as Mary, and the exploitative antics on screen. Her professor (Lovgren) is probably the most gnawing thing about this film, because his behavior is insufferable, and his warped sense of entitlement over his students is just not realistic. I know we're supposed to hate him and that's the reason why he is designed in that way, but he's just so blatant about it. Mary changing to a bloodthirsty horror villain over his crime seemed a bit extreme. The ending was also anticlimactic for the story set up, and came out of nowhere. Otherwise, this film brutally entertains, and does so with all the lust and plasma it can muster.

While this dark, twisted thriller delivers some great gross-out moments, it ultimately falters under the weight of its own sadism and is seriously let down by sub-par acting and some scattershot plotting. First off, I should say that overall I did enjoy the film. It kind of works as body horror, and the premise of body modification surgery allows for some fairly gruesome and grotesque sequences. However, this concept is never really allowed to cohere into a compelling story. The overall narrative deals with a broke medical student, Mary, who goes into the world of body modification surgery to make some extra money. That in itself is fine, but the way in which she's motivated to begin this work is rather cliché, becomes a half-ignored subplot and is then resolved in a rather mundane, anti-climactic way. The movie seems more interested in showing how weird it can be than really telling a story. Another problem with the film is the acting, because nobody (the lead included) really delivers a good performance. Some things I liked about the film was the rather eclectic soundtrack, which included dubstep, electronic pop and classical music. There was also one scene in particular, which takes place in a bathroom, that really stood out as building effective tension and conveying a sense of claustrophobia and fear. Also, the sequences where Mary does her body modification thing were (mostly) tastefully done. Overall, it's an OK movie but the experience is cheapened by poor acting, a muddled and poorly resolved plot and often taking itself too seriously. For me, a better movie that's similar to this would be EXCISION, although this wasn't bad enough to not necessarily recommend.