American Mary

American Mary: a broke-but-talented medical student accidentally stumbles across the world of extreme body modification, which helps pay the bills, and then some. This opens up with a sexy woman (yes)… in sexy lingerie (YES)… stitching up a raw chicken (oh…). The directors picked their target market (body mod goths) and just threw as much of the weirdness that comes with the territory into the movie: there’s a ton of bizarre faces and characters, leathers, latex, and awful techno metal – like a budget Matrix Soundtrack. It ends up feeling a bit like weirdness for wierdness’ sake – a bunch of ‘that would be cool/gross’ scenes stapled together: part rape revenge, part Saw, part Hostel, part Audition… The story also runs out of ground fairly quickly, after Mary’s career change it fumbles along ’til the fairly lame ending. Mary herself is a strange character: not really good or bad, just a bit ridiculous: would have been better and creepier to play it straight. Generally, it’s bad B-movie acting all round, which matches the sloppy dubbing and editing. If there’s one thing done well here, it’s the SFX, which are gut-wrenchingly slick – and provide the silver (or crimson) lining. With films like this and Dead Hooker in a Trunk the Soska Sisters seem to be doing a low-rent Tom Six thing.

Score: 3/10