Review: American Mary

The short review is that it's just really, really good.

It's a rare treat to be able to surround yourself with creative types that are just bursting with projects to make and stories to tell. Even rarer is the opportunity to see those projects and stories come to life and be able to bask in the wonderment of what they create. Last night, I was able to do just that with my dear friends Jen & Sylvia Soska, better known as the Twisted Twins.

I so totally don't blame you if you're jealous.

I took a day trip up to Toronto to see the Canadian premier of American Mary, which closed out the first night of the Toronto After Dark Film Fest (which is super rad, btdubs), and while I am, as of this writing, going on 33 hours without sleep, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Sure, I'm exhausted. Sure, I had to buy an overpriced plane ticket. Sure, I waited for an hour in the rain. But you know what? I'd do it again, just to be there to support my friends. In. A. Heartbeat.

The direction was "act like you don't like each other." Clearly that meant "act like you don't like Sylvia."

If you ever read this blog (which, granted, hasn't been updated in a while), you know that I never have anything but amazing things to say about the Soskas. But to be fair, it's only because there are only amazing things to say about them. They are so hard working and deserve all the honors that are bestowed on them, which, due to American Mary, are stacking up higher and higher.

Tristan Risk & the Twins, the darlings of Fantastic Fest.

As I absolutely hate spoilers, I'm going to just give a basic, in no way in depth blurb about the film's story: the film follows surgical student Mary Mason as, due to horrific circumstances, she grows disillusioned with med school, and finds herself in the lucrative, yet bizarre world of extreme body modification, and her subsequent transformation into a sinister reflection of the woman she was at the onset of the film.

A solid alternative title would have been Fun with Surgery!

Because this can easily devolve into a Soska love fest (Sosklove fest), I feel it prudent to talk about the cast first. Katie Isabelle (of Ginger Snaps fame) plays Dr. Mary perfectly. There isn't a single aspect of her performance that I can point out as why she's so amazing in the role. She's so natural as Mary, and it's both beautiful and horrifying. This is Miss Isabelle's watershed moment. I firmly believe that she will no longer be known as Ginger Snap's Katie Isabelle, but as American Mary's Katie Isabelle. She was brilliant and heartbreaking and terrifying, and I doubt that there's another actress out there that could have played the role better.

Mary, Mother of mod.

And while this was very obviously Miss Isabelle's movie, there is one person that constantly stole the spotlight away from her, and that would be Tristan Risk as Beatress Johnson, a role which is a total physical transformation, as Miss Johnson has become a real life Bettie Boop. Risk just nails it. In a film that can go to extremely dark places, Risk's Beatress is like a giant ray of sunshine. Even when she was just in the background, she had the audience howling. I can only hope this is a breakthrough performance for her, as the world could definitely use way more Little Miss Risk.

Risk, damn near unrecognizable as Beatress.

Antonio Cupo gives a solid performance as Billy Barker, a strip club owner who's also Mary's doorway to the body mod community. Paula Lindberg is fantastic (and basically unrecognizable) as Ruby Realgirl. David Lovgren & Clay St. Thomas play Mary's deplorable surgical teachers in solid costarring roles. Twan Holliday is hilarious as Lance, who becomes Dr. Mary's muscle. The Soskas' parents actually make cameos in the film, too. And then, of course, there are the Twins, themselves. Unlike in Dead Hooker in a Trunk, Jen & Sylvia took a step back from acting, playing a small, but extremely memorable role as German twins who are big names in the body mod community. To say that they wish to be close would be an understatement.

This is all I'm showing you of the Twins. Go see the film.

The film itself just looks beautiful, so visually different than Dead Hooker. The content of the two films couldn't really be more different either, showing the range that the Twisted Twins have as both writers and directors. While Dead Hooker was an amazing first feature, especially given the complete lack of budget, Mary is a whole other animal. It gives the audience a chance to see what the Soska Sisters can do when given a budget. What's more impressive is that the entire film was shot in fifteen days. Fifteen! That's unheard of, especially when you consider the quality of the film.

Just an aside, but suck a hard one, TIFF.

And now the numbers:

Film - 5 out of 5 Stars
Radness - 8 out of 5 Human Corsets
Tribal Scarings -  Get out of here

It seems like everything is coming up Milhouse for the Soskas and their American Mary crew. They were picked up by Universal Pictures for European distribution over the summer, which is mind blowing. Monster Pictures is releasing the film in Australia, too. But there was big news revealed last night, and that is that Anchor Bay has bought the Canadian distribution rights, which I'm so stoked about. Now we just have to wait and hope to hear about American distribution. But that's not all: after an already busy year of screening Mary at different festivals, Jen & Sylv are going to be staying on the road for a few weeks more, heading back to LA for Son of Monsterpalooza and then to Monsterfest in Australia, where they get to hang out with THE Elvira.

Yup.

I have the coolest friends.

It's a Fact: Jen & Sylvia Soska are Taking Over the World

Nerd girls FTW

If you know me, or regularly read my infrequently updated blog, you'll know that I'm a huge fan of the Twisted Twins, aka Jen & Sylvia Soska, both as writers/directors/everythings and as people (talk about two people who are absolutely amazing to their fans). You can read my first post about them/review of their feature length debut, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, here. Also, if it weren't for them, I never would have made this radgasmic little zombie short, so I kind of owe them, too.

Seriously, who isn't swooning over the Twinniepoos?

I could gush about them forever, but the three people who read it don't want that, so I'll just make my point: after a killer (pun!) showing at the Cannes Film Festival a few months back, their newest film, American Mary, made quite the splash. A couple of weeks back, the Twins tweeted a message about great news (and subsequent dancing around). The filthy teases. Well, we had to wait until today.

Sosklove

Dread Central and Daily Dead, among other media outlets, have broke the news that Universal Pictures International Entertainment has picked up the foreign distribution rights for American Mary. This is absolutely amazing news for the Canadian duo, as well as there fans. Now, I, for one, am fiercely waiting for the news of a US distributor for the film, which may or may not be one more of the many rad secrets that the Twins want to share with us, but contractually cannot. Yet. In the meantime, I highly, highly recommend that you watch the American Mary trailer, then rewatch it, then rewatch it like 17 more times (20 times would be far too much...for one sitting...maybe).

Using That Degree of Mine = Zombies

I graduated from William Paterson University 4 years ago with a degree in Communications, Specialization in Film. In that time, I'd done nothing with it. And that's my fault. Granted, I did some writing on unfinished scripts and ideas, but nothing that came to fruition.

Fast-Forward to a few months ago. I stumbled upon a little gem of a grindhouse film called "Dead Hooker in a Trunk," written/directed/starring/more-or-less everythinged by Jen & Sylvia Soska, a set of hot Canadian twins. I've written about that film before, so let me just reiterate my feelings on it: it's rad. So rad. But getting back on track, the internet has let me become friends with the Twisted Twins, and I'm thankful for that.

It's because of them that I got interested in filmmaking again. So, I banged out a script, rounded up some friends, and filmed (what I think is) a pretty freaking rad little short zombie film. I entered it into a competition in Vancouver. Sadly, I didn't make the finals (not that I was expecting it), but I don't care. I'm so proud of what we accomplished, especially for what little we had.

It's called "Your Time is Up" and is inspired by Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." I truly hope you enjoy it. The fact that anybody's seeing it blows my mind & makes me ecstatic all at the same time.