American Mary (2013) review

(5/10)

This medical horror movie is a bit stylish and scares with a few intense moments, but for the most part, this movie is pretty bland and not entertaining.

PLOT:A medical student named Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) is running out of money to live on and is getting bored with medical school in general. One day, Mary comes up with an idea to get easy money by applying for strip club. However, something goes wrong and Mary is led to do her first real surgery for a large amount of money. Since that night, people have been coming to her asking for over-the-top body modifications, starting with the Betty Boop-like, Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk). However, the more she gets into this weird art of body modification, the more twisted her mind becomes. It's a great plot executed decently.

ACTING:The acting in here is okay. It's good at some moments and bad at others. Katharine Isabelle played a pretty alright part as the young, twisted Mary Mason. She could have added more emotion to the part, but she was decent enough to settle with. The other performances were just okay and no one truly stood out, I'd say, except for some of the victims and past surgeries.

SCORE:The score was pretty good. There were some normal, freaky horror themes, but there were also some really beautiful piano themes as well as a few indie songs for the soundtrack.

EFFECTS:The effects in here had me convinced for the most part. The blood effects looked pretty real for the most part up to the end. The effects of the surgeries and their aftermaths were pretty good. There were a few scenes where the effects really failed, however. I enjoyed seeing the end results of some of these weird body modifications.

OTHER CONTENT:This body horror movie was just pretty bland overall. The suspense didn't build up to much, the story seemed a bit too generic and unrealistic (even for a horror movie), and the movie didn't entertain but in a few scenes were the girls are present and the violence occurs. However, there were a few key moments that I was convinced that Mary was really insane, and it almost scared me. The more intense parts were well done but seemed to be almost a shock after the rising suspense that was unconvincing. The movie was pretty bland overall, but it had a few key points and moments in it to save it from sucking much worse.

OVERALL,a neutral body horror movie with a great plot, okay acting, pretty good score, almost-convincing effects, and a few key moments that tied the movie in, but the suspense didn't build up to much, the story seemed too generic and unrealistic for a body horror, and the movie wasn't real entertaining.