“Everything can be forgiven if the work is good.”
Remember the Soska Sisters? They were poised to become the next big thing in horror; the Canadian twins were even the first filmmakers, ever, to remake a film from fellow Canuck David Cronenberg (Rabid). Then, through some imbroglio involving Twitter’s policies on posting graphic photos, they overnight became darlings of the alt-right, and whether that was by design or not, the damage was done and their career never really recovered. People who read Fangoria don’t want their idols being retweeted by bigoted polemicists like Matt Walsh. It might be for the best, though. At the start of the Soskas’ career, the Guardian called them “the future of horror.” If their film American Mary is any indication, though, the future is bleak.
Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle, of the far superior Ginger Snaps) is training to be a surgeon at an unnamed med school, located in a nondescript city that we later learn is supposed to be Seattle. She’s a diligent student, even taking the time at home to practice her suturing on turkeys. She does this in a nightie, which is the first time that American Mary shows us its interesting clothing choices. Mary is in lingerie in almost every scene, and literally does not wear pants at any point. She’s a good student, but you wouldn’t know if from the way her professor, Dr. Grant, speaks to her. He cautions her “Don’t fuck up” and dismisses the rest of his students as “twats.” You’ll start to notice a theme here, namely that almost everyone in this movie is an openly hostile misanthrope (Grant, in particular, has the mien and body language of an abusive husband in a Lifetime movie. I think the Soskas were aiming for edgy quips and landed squarely on confrontation.)
Short on funds and being hounded by her student loan servicer, Mary swallows her pride – well, not quite – and heads to the Bourbon a Go Go (get it?) to apply for a job as a dancer. After making her way past a child’s version of what a bouncer wears and does, she finds herself stripped to her garters and corset for the club’s owner, Billy. Look, American Mary is an indie film, and as such I’m sure budget constraints were an unfortunate reality. If that’s the case, then, why would they pick the most cavernous building they could find to house their sad strip club? There’s almost no patrons, and I haven’t seen a topless bar this chaste since Verotika. Mary continues the movie’s motif of unprovoked aggression by making it very clear that she thinks she’s too good for the job she, honestly, desperately needs.
In short order, she’s offered five grand to stitch up someone bleeding out in the club’s basement. She does, and when she gets home she’s so disgusted with herself that she has to shower immediately (still wearing the lingerie, obviously). Her handiwork catches the attention of Beatress Johnson, who has modified herself to look like Betty Boop. Beatress is flighty and a little annoying, but that’s on purpose, and the idea behind her is fascinating enough in a Cyberpunk 2077 kind of way that she’s usually the most interesting person on screen. Any reluctance Mary had about stitching up an assault victim are thrown out the window when she’s offered ten grand to do some major surgery in which she helps a woman realize her goal of turning into a human doll.
From here, one would imagine that American Mary would wade through the bloody morass of Cronenbergian body horror, but the Soskas’ reticence to show much gore renders their film strangely toothless. Instead, they briefly dip into the rape/revenge genre, as Mary is assaulted at a party thrown by some other surgeons. Why this didn’t set off any alarm bells is anyone’s guess, as Mary is greeted by Dr. Black, played by someone who delivers his lines as if he won a contest to be in a movie. He doesn’t know whether to go for lecherous or flamboyant, so he decides to do both poorly. Eventually Mary is drugged and assaulted by Dr. Grant, who also records it. To the film’s credit, the rape scene itself is straightforward and not lurid, and Isabelle does good work. The aftermath is even better, as we’re given a break from the near-constant needle drops to live with Mary in her silent trauma. To the film’s discredit, though, it’s here that American Mary goes completely off the rails, and not in the fun gonzo kind of way.
Mary continues her journey into the world of body modification, and it plays out more or less as you’d expect. She hires the now-lovelorn Billy to kidnap Dr. Grant, who she mutilates and amputates over the course of the film. She kills a security guard who finds Grant, and evades the question of an inexplicably British detective looking into his disappearance. At one point she confides in Lance, a partner of Billy’s, that the killing is having an effect on her. “Make sure they deserve it,” he says after a painful monologue that sounds as if the discovered the word “fuck” the day before. What are you talking about, Lance? She’s not the Punisher. Mary is an underground surgeon who, on screen, has killed two people, one of whom was on impulse.
American Mary is a tonal mess, borderline incoherent, and not even saved by Katherine Isabelle, whose affectless performance I found oddly charming. It’s a mercy that the Soskas (who make a cameo, both speaking in cartoonish German accents) didn’t try to make this a trans allegory, as the film threatens to become in its beginning, because whatever this is doesn’t need to be bogged down by commentary it can’t support. This is a total mess in almost every conceivable fashion. Oh, the lighting is pretty good. So it’s got that going on.
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