THE SOSKA SISTERS PRESENT: AMERICAN MARY. (2012) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Frightfest Announce UK Theatrical Tour For American Mary

Following its recent successful UK festival run, including the world’s first screening at Film4 FrightFest in London in August, the smart and stylish horror thriller American Mary will return to UK cinemas for a theatrical tour from January 11 2013, courtesy of FrightFest Presents.

Additionally, Canadian-born writer/directors Jen and Sylvia Soska, and Mary Mason herself, lead actress Katharine Isabelle (Gingers Snaps) will all be returning to the UK to introduce the screenings, starting at the Prince Charles Cinema on Friday January 11, followed by shows around the UK including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Brighton and Leeds.

The tour will take in seven cities over seven dates, with introductions and post-film Q&As from the filmmakers, compered by FrightFest’s Alan Jones and Paul McEvoy.


Ian Rattray of FrightFest Presents commented: "After the fantastic reception both American Mary and the Soska Sisters got at FrightFest, we're immensely proud to be able to partner Universal Pictures UK for the theatrical opening of the film. This is FrightFest Presents’ first step into theatrical distribution and American Mary is the perfect fit for us".

Jen & Sylvia Soska commented: “After being given an opportunity of a lifetime for a filmmaker by having our first American Mary screening at the fantastic FrightFest, the festival organisers and Universal are doing it again by bringing us out to travel with the film in the UK for its theatrical tour. We are so thrilled to be coming  back where our career first kicked off with the first film and cannot wait to experience the new film with all the filmgoers in the darkened theatres. Looking so forward to meeting you all and seeing you there!”

Katharine Isabelle commented: “American Mary is dark, twisted, smart and beautiful. When I first read Jen and Sylv’s script, I knew it would be an incredible professional adventure. The twins’ ingenuity and wit is just undeniable and I am so excited to share the result with audiences in the United Kingdom this January”.

Full cinema listings:

Fri January 11 - Prince Charles Cinema, London
020 7494 3654, www.princecharlescinema.com

Sat January 12 - Edinburgh Filmhouse
0131 228 2688, www.filmhousecinema.com 

Sun January 13 - Glasgow Film Theatre
0141 332 6535, www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre

Mon January 14 - Sheffield Showroom
0114 275 7727, www.showroomworkstation.org.uk 

Tue January 15 - Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds
0113 275 2045 www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk

Wed January 16 - Bristol Watershed
0117 927 5100, www.watershed.co.uk 

Thu January 17 – Duke’s at Komedia, Brighton
www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Dukes_At_Komedia

One of the year’s most horrific highlights, American Mary tells the story of broke student Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) who grows disenchanted with medical school and the doctors she once idolised.
The allure of easy money sends a desperate Mary through the gruesome world of underground surgeries but soon finds they leave more marks on her than the so-called freakish clientele...
Smart, sexy, funny and utterly gorgeous to look at, American Mary features a standout lead performance from award-winning actress Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps), and puts the Soska Sisters, aka the Twisted Twins, squarely at the forefront of modern genre filmmaking.
On both sides of the Atlantic, Jen and Sylvia Soska’s American Mary has already been celebrated with more than a dozen international film festival honours, including Best Picture (LA ScreamFest, Shudder Fest) as well as Best Director and Best Actress (Toronto After Dark, LA Screamfest, Shudder Fest).
Total Film Magazine voted Katharine Isabelle Best Actress at London’s Film4 FrightFest in August, whilst SFX Magazine called American Mary the ‘Best of the Fest’.

American Mary will be released theatrically through FrightFest Presents at selected cinemas nationwide from January 11 2013.

She's Coming! American Mary Gets UK Release

The Soska Sisters (aka The Twisted Twins), co-creators of the award winning, cult indie smash hit Dead Hooker In A Trunk make an awe-inspiring return with their second feature AMERICAN MARY, a stylish, sexy, disturbing and darkly comic “body-mod” horror-thriller that many critics are hailing as the best and most genuinely original horror movie of the year.

Co-written and co-directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska (Dead Hooker In A Trunk) and featuring an outstanding, career-best lead performance by Katharine Isabelle (Being Human; Freddie vs. Jason; Ginger Snaps) in the title role, AMERICAN MARY has been wowing audiences at international film festivals (including London’s Film4 Frightfest) throughout 2012 and has been receiving 4/5 star reviews from critics, websites worldwide making American Mary a film Horror Fans should be checking out.

A provocative and thought-provoking combination of the horrors of a feminist “Frankenstein” with a fetishist twist and the visceral thrills of the “female revenge” genre, the film boasts a strikingly original script, laced throughout with a wicked sense of humour and a darkly erotic charge, that admirably takes the horror genre in a fresh and new direction. Simultaneously beautiful, repulsive, shocking and endearing, AMERICAN MARY is an unmissable experience that firmly establishes the Soska Sisters as two of the hottest new talents working in cinema today

Struggling to make financial ends meet while studying to be a surgeon, talented medical student Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) finds herself reduced to applying for work at a local strip joint in order to pay off her mounting debts. During her interview, she is unexpectedly called upon to perform some illegal emergency surgery on one of the club’s clients and is instantly rewarded with a significant cash payment.

Word of Mary’s scalpel-work soon reaches one of the club’s dancers, Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk), who approaches her offering to pay handsomely for some off-the-books, extreme body-modification work on a friend. The ensuing surgery is a huge success and Mary’s skills soon attract the attention of an underground network of high-paying clientele, all looking for someone to administer procedures and body-mod work unavailable through the usual legal channels.

However, the allure of the easy money and the increasingly bizarre work she is commissioned to perform begins to leave a mark on Mary, and when an incident involving the established surgeons she once idolized leaves her traumatised, “Bloody Mary”, as she has come to be known, responds in the only way she knows how.

We will hopefully bring you a review nearer the time and when is that time? American Mary will be released in UK&Ireland on DVD and Blu-Ray 21st January 2013.

Pre-Order/Buy American Mary: DVD / Blu-ray