Story: A medical student who lives to become a surgeon finds herself really short on funds and deep in debt.  After trolling Craigslist for “no sex required” jobs — as you do — she stumbles upon a job that turns into a way to use her burgoning talents.  One thing leads to another, and she becomes kind of a big deal in the BodyMod community.  But since she’s flying under the legal radar, you know things aren’t gonna go off without a hitch or three.

Scares: An overall miasma of creepy and general dread, but not too much in the flat-out scare department.  Then again, since this movie deals with a subject I find fascinating, I could be a bit numbed to the overall shock value.  But probaby not.  The running storyline between Mary and her surgical professor is where the real creepy lies; another subplot that deals with someone not keen on Mary’s work is more crime thriller than horror.

Splat factor: Oh yeah, there’s blood.  But not as much as you’d expect considering the storyline.  American Mary deals more with the characters and how the situations they find themselves in affect them.  So this is basically a splatter movie that just about anyone can watch without being squicked out.

Closing scene “shocker”?: Not in the least.  The closing shot of Mary is a bit heavy-handed, but as the Soska Sisters (Dead Hooker In A Trunk) don’t exactly play subtle, it’s not a bad last look. Bonus points to the ladies for wrapping up this story nicely without any final gotcha.

Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: An original, and a great twist in the body horror genre.

ATrick or Treat?: American Mary is like a candy that your best friend loves, but you’ve never tried.  And then you do and you like it.  Is it as groovy as your favorite?  Maybe not, but it’s still good.  I’d heard tons of good things about this movie, and so I was happily surprised to find that the film lived up to the hype.  As I’m not into close-ups of dismemberment (I’m talking to you, Hostel.  And I’m sorry), this was just the ticket.  Lots of cutting, plenty of blood, but nothing so magnified that I had to look away.

I adore Katharine Isabelle; she’s an actress with a lot of talent, more than 99% of the other ladies in this genre. Here she pulls off comedy, drama, horror…all in 6” heels.  Her descent into the underground world of Billy Barker’s club and his clientele — along with the surgeries she performs for the underground body-mod community — changes her from a driven medical student to a woman as addicted to cutting as her clients are to being cut.  Remorseless, emotionless, she starts to look more like a cold china doll than her plastic surgery hungry clients.

Beatress (a human “Betty Boop”) is sweet and creepy at the same time, . Meanwhile, Billy’s bouncer/Mary’s Guy Friday Lance is very sweet.  Like in a “with a heart of gold” kinda way.  A great twist on the usual voiceless grunt.  One thing I don’t dig is how Mary dresses in black, fetish-lite, outfits even before her life situation takes a turn to the new and different.  Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, it’s too much too soon.  Otherwise?  This is a film that I can see myself re-watching with friends, or maybe unspooling it again around Halloween or Friday the 13th.

Score:  out of 5 pumpkins.