Hidden Gem: American Mary

American Mary background in the image above thanks to Bloody Disgusting.

Hey all! It’s Kim again, and I’m going to have a small series I’ll be running for a month or two called Hidden Gem. There are so many great horror movies out there—both domestic and foreign—that don’t get the love they deserve, usually because they don’t fall under the mainstream film category (like say the Friday the 13th movie franchise or Scream does).

So for my first post on Hidden Gem, I’m focusing one of my favorites: American Mary.

Hidden Gem: American Mary

I love, love, love American Mary, and I have Bree Ogden to thank for that. When I first started to intern for her, she told about a few of her favorite things so I could get a better vibe of what her tastes are—which luckily for the most part jive with what I like—but I hadn’t seen one of her favorite movies, American Mary, yet. So I found it on Amazon Prime and watched it.

And omg, it was amazing. 

We have the wonderfully twisted twins to thank for this movie, a.k.a the Soska sisters, Jen and Sylvia Soska (they make a cameo in the movie as well). Here is the synopsis provided by IMBD:

The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called “freakish” clients.

The movie is about body modification—a very fascinating community of people who modify their bodies to reflect what they feel on the inside. I would say this falls under psychosexual horror, and that subgenre tends to be ignored by some as just “horror porn”.

I understand that concern, poorly done psychosexual horror is “horror porn” (a few J-Horrros come to mind right away…), but American Mary isn’t. It’s about Mary Mason (played by the amazingly talented Katharine Isabelle) finding herself after a horrible incident, and figuring out how to live her life by her own terms.

I can’t say much about the movie without giving away the twists and turns, but here’s the trailer if you aren’t convinced yet that you should check it out (American Mary is in on American Netflix). If you are convinced, just go watch it. The movie trailer gives some of the good parts away.

Movie Trailer

So what are some of YOUR favorite hidden gems?