By Robert Scucci
| Published 34 seconds ago
Midway through my viewing of 2012’s American Mary, I hit pause and preemptively jotted down a note saying, “There’s not a single moment in this movie in which I enjoyed myself or felt good about watching it.” If I’m being truthful, this one was hard to get through because as much as I love gore, I much prefer the kind that’s so over the top it stops feeling real. You don’t get any of that with American Mary, a film that introduces itself to your eyeballs through closeups of a raw turkey being dissected and sutured by an aspiring medical student.
Right off the rip, American Mary makes you uncomfortable through its visuals before zooming out and making you feel dumb for being so grossed out so soon. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, you know full well that playing Operation with a piece of poultry is actually an effective way for surgical residents to fine-tune their skillset at home in a way that’s affordable and makes post-practice dinner options a no-brainer.
That’s all well and good, but as soon as American Mary gives you a brief moment of comfort, it escalates into the type of body horror bloodbath that will have you rattling off a litany of questions to any medical professional before going under the knife for even the most routine of surgeries.
From Medical Student To Bloody Mary
American Mary starts out as your typical underdog story, introducing Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle) as a struggling medical student trying to get through school without any outside financial help. She’s clearly talented and takes her work seriously, but is constantly humbled and belittled by Dr. Alan Grant (David Lovgren), a professor who recognizes her potential while simultaneously pushing her to a breaking point.
Tight on cash, Mary seeks out her strip club owning friend Billy (Antonio Cupo), hoping to land a job to keep herself afloat. It’s at this strip club where Mary is made an offer she can’t refuse. There’s a man bleeding out in the basement who needs immediate medical intervention, and Billy offers her $5,000 to stitch him up and keep her mouth shut.
The surgery is a success, which leads to a stripper named Beatress (Tristan Risk) tracking Mary down with another offer. Beatress is a soft-spoken woman who’s undergone extensive plastic surgery to resemble Betty Boop, has seemingly infinite financial resources at her disposal, and wants a consultation for an extensive procedure involving her acquaintance Ruby Realgirl (Paula Lindberg). Ruby’s request is simple. She wants every part of her body that can be gawked at sexually to be removed, effectively turning herself into a living Barbie doll.
Hard up for cash and on the verge of dropping out of medical school, Mary takes the job and decides to open up a body modification shop for clients looking to undergo similar or even more extreme surgeries under the radar. As Mary gains clout in the underground body modification circuit, she also gets revenge on Dr. Alan Grant, who assaulted her while she was still his student before her residency, by using his now mangled body as a means to practice surgeries the same way she once practiced on raw turkey earlier in the film.
The Most Profound Transformation Of All
Disgusting body modification surgeries aside, the real transformation that threw me for a loop in American Mary was Mary herself. While I was initially disturbed by the film’s gore, I eventually learned to accept it because that’s clearly the vibe the writer and directors, Jen and Sylvia Soska, were going for. One thing I’m far less forgiving about is how quickly Mary’s personality changes.
Since I’ve never been assaulted by a teacher while simultaneously considering dropping out of med school to join the black market surgery circuit, I can’t objectively say that her character evolution is outright wrong, but it certainly feels rushed. Mary starts out timid and reserved, and by the second act she’s an overconfident monster willing to put the knife to anyone with the wallet to pay for their questionable procedures. That includes amputations, mutilation, and in one instance, sewing two twins together.
The gore is fine. The character evolution is fine in theory too. But in my mind, it all happens so quickly that we never really get to sit with the interim phases Mary may have gone through to reach this point of no return. That missing connective tissue made it harder for me to fully buy into her transformation, even as the film doubled down on its increasingly extreme imagery.
All in all, American Mary is a solid body horror film, but one that ultimately fails to stick the landing due to these tonal inconsistencies. I can’t say I’ll ever watch it again, but fans of David and Brandon Cronenberg will likely get exactly what they’re looking for if top-notch gore and practical effects are their primary draw.
As of this writing, American Mary is streaming for free on Tubi.
