Review: American Mary (2012)

American Mary

IMDB rate: 6,3

Genre: Revenge, Torture

I have this movie on my computer for ages already, I finally decided to watch it. I expected a movie that's comparable with I Spit on Your Grave, and it's indeed a bit like that... on same parts. Just like I Spit on Your Grave, American Mary starts with the things she does out of revenge. But well, since it's only one person to take her revenge to it was quickly done. Then she starts doing 'her thing' on a more professional base, so that's where it differs from I Spit on Your Grave. 

The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called 'freakish' clients.

The first half of the movie was pretty awesome. Mary is a smart medical student who is in need of money. She does a few illegal side operations to earn a bit of money, then she goes to a surgeon party where she got raped. Since Mary isn't the sweetest girl around, she decides to take her revenge on the guy. How this went you'll only know until later in the movie, but believe me when I say it was quite brutal. 

From here on the movie turns on quite drastically I think. The torturing wasn't too strange, but everything from there on is. She stops with medical school (which isn't strange, considering the circumstances) and decides to go in body modification. 

Now, with the whole body modification thing I felt like I missed something. Suddenly she's freaking close to some guy from the club, and the first two times she did a body modification she was kinda messed up. So for her to go back in that business that seriously was kinda surprising. Sure, it's easy money, but her reactions towards the modification was completely different suddenly.

The ending came quite sudden I think. I wasn't too happy with it as it seemed kinda random. Sure, I get to motives behind it, but still it wasn't her fault, she only did what was asked from her. 

I loved the first half of the movie, but I thought the second half was a bit chaotic. American Mary is not just a rape-revenge movie, it's also an ode to people who aren't easily likable on first sight. With this I mean that the surgeons (aka the rapers) look normal and seem nice but were that inhuman that they could rape a young woman. While the people with all the body modifications going on seemed weird looking, and on first eye you'll think of them negatively, because of the way they look. In this movie they were the nice people, they were open and sweet. 

I think it's some sort of strong message that you shouldn't judge people of the way they look. 

The acting of Katharine Isabelle is very good. She's sarcastic and dangerous looking, I really liked her in this role. Now I must admit that I only saw Katharine Isabelle in Freddy vs. Jason before this movie, and well that really isn't her best role (neither is it an amazing movie) , but I do own the DVD from Ginger Snaps, so I'm still planning to see more of her.

All together, I'm not exactly sure what I thought of this movie. The first half was amazing, while the second half seemed a bit random. Like I already explained, perhaps the second half contained a deeper meaning behind the body modification stuff, I'm not sure about that. If what I thought really was the meaning behind it then I'm having much more respect for the second half than if it wasn't intended that way. Guess we'll never know...

The acting is good and so are the special effects. I think the movie is worth a watch, although it's definitely not one of my favorite movies. It's good, but nothing very special.

Personal rate: 6,5/10