It's nothing like that. It's different and in a good way.
From then we straight away know that this film will have all sorts of wrong but with class.
Mary is low on money, her phone is going to be cut off and she simply cant afford anything. At med school she is a rising star, the most intelligent in her class and hopes to one day become a surgeon.
For the time being between those times however she decides to make money in any way possible so she calls up a strip club to become a dancer.
With an impromptu surgery being needed while at the club we see the start of descent into the underground world of surgery and modification.
To begin with she doesn't take to it but as we know she does eventually.
I wont say what the horrible moment is that drives her to start her modifications and most people would believe its an unnecessary scene, whereas really it is completely necessary as it shows Marys already cold attitude toward people become something more, a push over the edge of morality.
The former werewolf played the obsessive, quiet, reserved girl with class and a sense of tease to her.
Pretty much always wearing clothes showing her flesh but not everything seems to make everybody want her, and being a pretty girl any way the casting of Katharine added personality to the character.
The rest of the cast however weren't as good unfortunately. At first when we are first introduced to the character Beatrice, I liked her. As the film went on however the characters (including Beatrice) just managed to become borderline jokes. The worst of all was the twins. The Soska sisters who wrote and directed the film decided to star in it too, fortunately not for long as the film would have been much worse that way.
The story itself was an amazing story. Original and inventive it was a refreshing taste of so called 'horror'.
And even though the cast weren't anything special, it was still a very special film.
I did get bored about an hour in and drifted off like the film did but it came back storming after about 15 minutes and sucked me straight back into the magnificent tornado that is 'American Mary'.
What I liked the most was that it showed how these people obsessed with surgery and modification will actually do anything to feel different and/or beautiful. Fair enough some are a little bit more than what I think would be possible but I'm sure many of these crazy people in real life would have the operations featured if they could. Of course there are some real life modified people in the film showing off their mods too.
This wasn't in any means ''Torture Porn'' like the 'Hostel' and 'Saw' films as many people believe it is even though at the end of the credits it states 'For Eli Roth'.
Now I'm going to probably get some flak for this but at quite a few different points the imagery reminded me of many Stanley Kubrick films, especially that of his last film 'Eyes Wide Shut'.
I'm sure the Soska Sisters would be pleased with that.
I can imagine this film will be a massive cult classic in years to come.
The Soska Sisters definitely have it in them to tell a brilliant story and show it well, with a little more fine tuning I can see them being some of the future greats of the horror genre.
In all I have to give this a solid 8/10 stitches.