RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE along with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – THE ADAPTATION screen together this Friday through Sunday (August 26th-28th) as well as the following weekend (September 2nd-4th) at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, MO 63119). The program begins each evening at 7:30.
After Steven Spielberg’s classic RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARKwas released 35 years ago, three 11-year-old boys from Mississippi set out on what would become a 7-year-long labor of love and tribute to their favorite film: a faithful, shot-for-shot adaptation of the action adventure film. They finished every scene…except one; the film’s explosive airplane set piece. Over two decades later, the trio reunited with the original cast members from their childhood in order to complete their masterpiece. Featuring interviews with John Rhys Davies, Eli Roth and more, “Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made” is just that: the story of this long-gestating project’s culmination, chronicling the friends’ dedication to their artistic vision—mixed in with some movie magic—to create a personal, epic love letter to a true modern classic.
The documentary RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE includes new interviews with them, along with clips from the film itself, and a few blooper reel scenes and outtakes, and original, hand-drawn storyboards (of which there were 602, as explained in a film festival Q&A session after the screening, and before showing Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation) and people like John Ryhs-Davies, who have publicly commended the film.
RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE runs 106 minutes and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – THE ADAPTATION runs 100 minutes.
RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – THE ADAPTATION are both required viewing for fans of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, film buffs, and anyone who ever dreamed or fantasized about making a film, and you’ll have the chance to catch them on the big screen when they play this weekend Friday through Sunday (and next)at Webster University.
Admission is:
$6 for the general public
$5 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$4 for Webster University staff and faculty
Free for Webster students with proper I.D.
Advance tickets are available from the cashier before each screening or contact the Film Series office (314-246-7525) for more options. The Film Series can only accept cash or check.
The Webster University Film Series site can be found HERE
Producer Eli Roth (Knock Knock, Hostel franchise) and director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Cop Car) team up to bring audiences a haunting twist on the scary clown. Clown arrives on Blu-ray™and DVD August 23 from Dimension Films and Anchor Bay Entertainment.From a screenplay co-written by Watts and Christopher Ford, the film stars Laura Allen (“Ravenswood,” “All My Children”), Andy Powers (In Her Shoes, “Oz”) and Peter Stormare (“American Gods,” “The Blacklist,” Fargo).
Clown is a story of a loving father who dons a clown outfit and makeup to perform at his son’s sixth birthday, only to later discover that the costume – red nose and wig included– will not come off and his own personality changes in a horrific fashion. To break the curse of the evil outfit, the father must make grim choices with his own family facing danger.
Clown will be available on Blu-ray™ and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment on August 23, 2016 for the suggested retail price of $26.99 and $22.98, respectively, and includes “Making Clown Featuring Producer Eli Roth.”
The Critics are raving about CLOWN:
“Clown has the goods. Refreshingly dark and sick” – says Noel Murray of The Los Angeles Times
“Chilling” – says Staci Layne Wilson of DreadCentral.com
I loved the original CABIN FEVER! Remember when Cerina Vincent was shaving her legs and her skin started coming off?! Ick! Now, just 14 years later, they’ve remade CABIN FEVER.
The director of the original, Eli Roth, is Executive Producer this time for the reboot of his instant classic gorefest, which features all new characters and all new kills. This story is familiar: fresh out of college, a group of five friends retreat to a remote cabin in the woods for one last week of partying- only to become snacks for a gruesome, flesh-eating virus. What’s surprising are the ingenious new deaths, which offer a fresh spin on a horror-comedy milestone. With Gage Golightly (Teen Wolf)and Dustin Ingram (Paranormal Activity 3).
The new CABIN FEVER is directed by Travis Zariwny and stars Gage Golightly, Dustin Ingram, Nadine Crocker, Matthew Daddario & Samuel Davis
Check out this new trailer:
CABIN FEVER opens in New York and L.A. February 12th
Opening on Sept. 25th is Eli Roth’s THE GREEN INFERNO.
In the terrifying new film, a group of college students take their humanitarian protest from New York to the Amazon jungle only to be taken prisoner by the indigenous tribe they came to save. The movie marks Eli Roth’s return to directing for the big screen for the first time since his Hostel franchise, and tells the story of what happens when “slacktavism,” the well-meaning social media response to global catastrophes, turns into terror in the depths of the Amazon rainforest.
Dark and primitive customs still rule the Amazon jungle: cannibalism and other mind, body and soul-destroying rituals. Trapped in the village, these high-tech modern-world students experience the ultimate in primal barbaric terror, suffering unspeakable acts of violence in an intense and chilling rituals reserved only for the most threatening intruders. TRAILER
Watch what happens when you get the munchies in this crazy, NSFW video for THE GREEN INFERNO.
Check out this second NSFW video of what Brittany Furlan would rather do if she gets stuck in THE GREEN INFERNO.
Check out the latest trailer for Eli Roth’s KNOCK KNOCK starring Keanu Reeves.
Watch as the star of JOHN WICK finds out why it’s not a good idea to let strangers into the house.
When a devoted husband and father is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
A sexy new thriller from director Eli Roth, KNOCK KNOCK stars Keanu Reeves as the family man who falls into temptation and Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas as the seductresses who wreak havoc upon his life, turning a married man’s dark fantasy into his worst nightmare.
Written by Eli Roth & Nicolás López & Guillermo Amoedo, the thriller is executive produced by Keanu Reeves, Teddy Schwarzman, Sondra Locke, Peter Traynor, and Larry Spiegel.
KNOCK KNOCK will be released by Lionsgate Premiere in theaters and On Demand on October 9th.
Join Eli Roth as he embarks on the Fan Appreciation Tour to thank his fans for their loyalty and support of the national theatrical release of THE GREEN INFERNO on September 25. The tour will include special screenings, Q&As, guest appearances and private parties for fans in multiple cities.
Aimed at acknowledging and thanking Roth’s loyal fans who have supported THE GREEN INFERNO in its journey to the big screen, the tour will include stops in San Francisco on September 14, Los Angeles on September 15, Miami on September 17 and New York on September 21, with additional cities still to be named.
The tour will also feature a companion online experience, The Green Inferno Room, which brings fans around the country behind the scenes to get an insider’s look at Eli as he travels from city to city to meet his fans, including a live feed of select events.
Roth said: “I am so excited to hit the road and spend time with the fans whose undying support really helped bring The Green Inferno to theaters nationwide. We plan to pull out all the stops and give them the ultimate Green Inferno experience, with special surprises in every city.”
In THE GREEN INFERNO, a group of student activists travels to the Amazon to save the rainforest and soon discover that they are not alone, and that no good deed goes unpunished.
BH Tilt will release THE GREEN INFERNO nation-wide on September 25 in association with High Top Releasing, a label dedicated to servicing high quality movies using Focus Features’ distribution capabilities.
What happens to a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub in Chile when a massive earthquake hits? Hint: Nothing good!
Well, except that it gave me the opportunity to sit down with Eli Roth to talk about his new movie AFTERSHOCK, in which he stars, co-wrote, and produced. I would say that’s a pretty darn good outcome! Check it out below.
In the middle of a night of wild partying, a hapless American tourist (Roth) and his friends are suddenly plunged into a living hell when a powerful earthquake rips through the coastal town of Valparaíso, Chile.
What do you think it is about travel that sets a good tone for a film?
Eli Roth: Well, travel – Everyone has fantasies of traveling. We all want to escape our lives and go somewhere fun. A lot of times we want to go as far away from our lives and comforts as possible, but that also sets up a great horror movie because all the things that are wonderful about travel – the isolation, being in a new place, not knowing anyone – that can all turn against you. Every time I sit down to write a movie I try to write something completely different. I go “Ok, I’ve never done this type of movie before!” and then, after the fact, I realize that every movie is about a bunch of people going to a new place, then something horrible happens… and I don’t try to do that! People say that no matter what you’re making the same movie. No matter how hard you try you are always making the same movie over, and over, and over – on some level. With travel – it’s always fun, when you are watching a movie, to see an exotic location. A lot of people don’t know anything about Chile, or have never been there, or maybe they know it from wine, or maybe they know the miners. That’s what Nicolás López would joke about – “Oh, you think this is the city of God, and we all live in a giant favela.” [laughs]
I went down there to write the movie with him, and it was so beautiful. It’s like being in Santa Barbara. Gorgeous vineyards, and oceans. Santiago is very similar to Los Angeles. It looks like here in Los Feliz. There’s a W Hotel, Starbucks, amazing restaurants… It’s a fantastic city. Valparaíso, where we shot the movie – they allow graffiti to happen so graffiti artists from all over the world have turned this town into a walking museum. It’s crazy. It was a wild experience shooting there. I think travel sets up a great – it’s such a perfect setup for a horror movie. Every one has that experience where they go to a different town and they go to the wrong store, or they say the wrong thing, or they have the wrong encounter – and you just get this feeling of people looking at you – and suddenly it’s terrifying. So, we wanted to make a movie about society, and the fragility of society – and what happens when it all collapses, which is what happened. It all came from real stories of what Nicolás told me it was like that night of the earthquake. We didn’t want to make the serious Oscar version, so we fictionalized the earthquake and the events, but all of the events happened. The friend getting the hand cut off, the speakers crushing people in the clubs, the tsunami, the prison breakouts – all of that really happened that night.
WIth all of those events actually happening, and shooting on the location of the actual earthquake, how was your reception in the town? Especially with the subject matter hitting so close to home?
Eli Roth: People loved it! People love movies, and they knew that it was fiction – but, when we shot the club scene, Lorenza Izzo, who plays Kylie was in the club, and her friend got his hands cut off. She was there when they were trying to find the hands, and she had to run through a plate-glass window. You either had to try to find the hands – and then the aftershocks hit, and they were like “The club is going to collapse! It’s going to collapse!”. Then, the cell phone service went out, so nobody had GPS. Everyone realized that they were so dependent on their phones that they didn’t even know where to go! You couldn’t call the police, you couldn’t call the fire department. When we were shooting that scene, people were covered in dust – and they were saying “This is exactly what it was like!”.
Wow…
Eli Roth: … but they knew we were fictionalizing it, so no one was offended by what we were doing. Nico is such a popular filmmaker down there – people were really excited. They love horror movies down there, so I had a huge, huge fan base in Chile. My films have done very well in Latin America, so people were like “I wanna be covered in blood!” [laughs]. People were excited to be in it. It was fun! It was a great energy.
How does being one of the writers on a film affect your acting approach? Does that give you more of a license to improv or change things around as you go?
Eli Roth: Absolutely! I remember after INGLORIOUS BASTARDS Quentin (Tarantino) said “Now you can write great parts for yourself” and “You’ve proved you can act. You’ve done it alongside the best, and you’ve done it under me.”. I trust Nico so much. Nico, our third writer Guillermo Amoedo, and I had such a great time writing this script – but a lot of the dialogue came from me going there on a location scout, and hanging out with Ariel and Nicolás Martínez, who plays Pollo. Pollo’s his nickname anyway. So, a lot of the dialogue is us just goofing around. We’d go “Oh, that’s really funny. Let’s put that in the movie.” By the time we had the script – it was so fast in the way we shot it, that we really had to be tight. We didn’t have a lot of time for improv, so the improv came in the weeks leading up to the shooting. One of the nice things about being the producer, and the writer with Nico, is that anything we came up with we shot. The whole opening, where we were at the Adidas party – Adidas was actually throwing a party and they were like “Do you want to shoot here?”. We weren’t suppose to start shooting till January 15th, and the party was December 15th, but it’s summertime there. So, I just got on a plane, took the cameras down, and we went in and just improved a whole bunch of stuff – that became the entire opening before the vineyard. That was the fun thing about the way we shot this movie. Nico pioneered shooting on a Canon 7D.
Really? A 7D? That’s impressive!
Eli Roth: It’s amazing what he’s done. He’s a genius! His first movie PROMEDIO ROJO, which is on Netflix – they call it Latin American Pie… He made it when he was 19 years old, and people are looking like him like he’s Robert Rodriguez. It’s so funny, and it’s on Netflix with subtitles. You’ve gotta see it! Then, he made a movie called SANTOS which, at 23, was a huge flop. Everyone was like “Haha. You’re washed up!”.
Nicolás had a show called PILOTO MTV that he dropped out of school at 15 for – because he was writing, directing, producing, and acting in it. It aired after JACKASS. It was a massive hit in Latin America. This is when he was 16 years old! You can look him up on YouTube. Look up PILOTO MTV. You’ll see fat Nicolás López at 16 years old with hair. They’re fucking hilarious! [laughs] I keep telling him he has to subtitle them. They’re so fucking funny! It’s totally ridiculous.
After that he did PROMEDIO ROJO. He was writing for the main newspaper in Santiago when he was 13 years old. He had a column in the main paper. He’s hyper-intelligent. So, after SANTOS failed he buckled down, got sponsor money, and he made this movie FUCK MY LIFE – QUE PENA TU VIDA. He did it for, like, $200,000, and he shot it on a 7D. He sent the footage to Technicolor, and they blew it up. They released it in theaters and it made more money that THE SOCIAL NETWORK and THE HANGOVER PART II. It was a huge hit. So, then was like “You don’t need a film camera anymore. You can shoot a feature film on an SLR. We tried the Canon 5D Mark II. I went down to Chile. We shot tests on it, we blew it up, and it looked like we had shot it on a Luxor 35mm. If you light it right, and put the right lens on it, and you know how to shoot it, it can look like expensive 35mm film. I said “Well, what about shooting on film?” and he said “Dude. My sister watches everything on her iPad. She’s 12. She doesn’t give a fuck. Kids don’t give a fuck.”. Say it’s in theaters. If you’re movie’s a smash hit it’s in theaters for 17 days, and then it’s on iTunes anyway, So, we wanted to make this in a different way. “Let’s shoot a movie in English for the world. Let’s shoot a mainstream genre movie ” and we sold it all over the world. It’s being released theatrically worldwide. In America it’s on 100 screens and on VOD, and iTunes. “Let’s see if that works.” We did the movie for so little. We financed it by pre-selling it to every other country. His movies – QUE PENA TU VIDA (FUCK MY LIFE), QUE PENA TU BODA (FUCK MY WEDDING/MARRIAGE) , and the third QUE PENA TU FAMILIA (FUCK MY FAMILY) I have a cameo in – they’re all on Netflix with subtitles. It’s a great example of how the new generation is making movies. I thought “Ok. Everyone is saying you need ‘this’ camera and you really need to do it ‘that’ way. Let’s go and see if we can pull off a movie on a 5D.” – and that’s how we did it. Part of the fun is that we didn’t use CG. We wanted to make it real. We really wanted to smash the ceilings. We really wanted to destroy the cemetery, and we did! That was one of the nice things about shooting down there. It’s so much cheaper to shoot, and with the 5D we had 5 or 6 cameras covering stuff, we really destroyed stuff. There’s very, very little CG in the movie.
Since you were destroying things, it had to be one shot, right?
Eli Roth: One shot. Destroying that club is one shot. I remember watching them rehearsing, and the ceiling collapsing, and 80 girls in high heels trampling over each other and I said “Wow. I didn’t realize Chile had this many stunt girls!” and Nico goes “Ah! Gringo! Stunt girls? These are extras!”. I was like “Are you serious dude? They could get hurt.” and he goes “Ahhh. Stop being such a Gringo!”. We would just close our eyes, and thank God no one got hurt. I remember firing a blank. There’s a scene where an actor gets shot with a gun, and we have a pregnant woman firing a gun. I said “López, it’s dangerous to shoot a blank at this…” – “Naw… Naw… It’s fine” and Pablo, the AD is like “Ah, here. Point the gun at me.” He points it, and fucking shoots at Pablo, and he’s like “See. I’m fine. All right. Let’s go”. It was that. The way we tested the gun was that the AD stood in front because we had to fire it, and he was like “Ok. We’re good!”.
The best example of Chile is shooting in the cemetery when I’m crushed under a rock. I looked around, and there were skeletons next to me, cracked open tombs, bodies… and I said “Man, the art department did an amazing job!” and he’s like [laughs] “Gringo! Art Department!” and I was like “What?”, and he goes “We haven’t dressed anything! They just opened this for us. It’s been closed since the earthquake.”. There was so much in Chile that was destroyed from the earthquake and wasn’t fixed that, so we could go to locations that were still destroyed, like the cemetery. It’s all real. There was just a piece of concrete on me. That’s it. That was the only dressing,
Not to give anything away, but I’ve always wondered… Is it strange to see yourself tortured, or even killed on film?
Eli Roth: Actors love to see themselves die. They love it. It’s the one thing in our lives that we can never see. Now, you could see your birth. Someone could videotape your birth. You could watch that and go “I don’t really remember that, but that’s what happened.” but our death, we’ll never know. We’ll never know what our death looks like. You’ll never see it. You can watch it, but that moment of dying – you’re never going to see that. So, watching yourself die, and seeing yourself dead is a fantasy that most people have. It’s a morbid curiosity. It’s natural to imagine what your funeral is going to be like. What you’re going to look like as a dead body? What’s going to happen to you after you die? All of the stuff you do – what does it mean? What happens to everything? Does anyone remember you? It’s all ultimately meaningless. Then you’re dead. End of story. Next. Nobody cares. [laughs] So people have a fantasy – for actors- to watch themselves die. People have come up to me and said “I don’t want to be an actor, but I’d love to be killed in one of your movies.” Everybody has that fantasy. As kids, when you’re playing games, when someone shoots you, you go “Aghhhhh” and you play dead. When you try to take the ketchup from the fridge and your sister comes home, and walks into the kitchen to see you playing dead… It’s something that everybody does. It’s a natural curiosity.
So, I got the chance recently to go to the Goretorium.
Eli Roth: You did?
I did. My twin sister and I went for our birthday. It was a great time… which leads me to my next question. I’ve heard rumors that you have dressed up and hidden in your previous haunted houses. Have you, or do you do this in the Goretorium?
Eli Roth: Of course. Any time I’m in Vegas. If I’m there, I’ll jump in and scare people. It’s as thrilling to scare people as it is to be scared.
AFTERSHOCK stars Eli Roth, Andrea Osvárt, Ariel Levy, Nicolas Martinez, Lorenza Izzo, and Natasha Yarovenko, and Selena Gomez.
What happens to a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub in Chile when a massive earthquake hits? Hint: Nothing good! Watch this first teaser for director Nicolás López’s AFTERSHOCK. The only this more terrifying than mother nature… is human nature.
In Chile, an American tourist’s vacation goes from good to great when he meets some beautiful women travellers. But when an earthquake ravages the underground nightclub they are in, a fun night quickly turns to terror. Escaping to the surface is just the beginning as they face the nightmarish chaos above ground.
The film screened in September at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of their Midnight Madness program.
AFTERSHOCK is the unlikely pairing of Chilean director Nicolás López, who burst onto the scene with the geek comedy Promedio rojo, and contemporary horror icon Eli Roth, who co-wrote the script with López as well as starring and serving as producer. Originally planning to pen a sci-fi/horror film together, the project radically changed direction when López shared his own experiences of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that ripped through Chile in 2010, and the ensuing panic and societal breakdown.
Nicolás López has worked as a writer, director, producer and actor. He hosted his own comedy show on MTV (2004). His feature films as director are Promedio rojo 20(04), Santos (08), Fuck My Life (2010) and Fuck My Wedding (2011).
Coming down the pike for Roth is the cannibal film THE GREEN INFERNO and the Dracula movie HARKER. Written by Eli Roth and Nicolás López (@eliroth and @nicolaslopez), AFTERSHOCK hits theaters in 2013.
CBS Films announced today that it has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to THE LAST EXORCISM PART II from Studiocanal.
Directed by Ed Gass-Donnelly from a screenplay by Gass-Donnelly and Damien Chazelle, THE LAST EXORCISM PART II is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed 2010 hit THE LAST EXORCISM which surpassed all expectations by grossing more than $20 million its opening weekend. Eli Roth produced the film along with Marc Abraham, Thomas A. Bliss and Eric Newman of Strike Entertainment. Patty Long and Gabrielle Neimand served as executive producers.
Continuing where the first film left off, Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is found alone and terrified in the woods. Back in the relative safety of civilization, Nell realizes that she can’t remember entire portions of the previous months only that she is the last surviving member of her family. Just as Nell begins the difficult process of starting a new life, the evil force that once possessed her is back with other, unimaginably horrific plans that mean her last exorcism was just the beginning.
CBS Films Executive Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Scott Shooman negotiated the deal with Studiocanal Executive Vice President of International Distribution Harold van Lier. Studiocanal fully financed the film and will handle its release in the UK, France and Germany. Mr. van Lier commented, “Heading into AFM we knew that the creative team behind THE LAST EXORCISM PART II had delivered a bigger, scarier sequel. CBS Films came to the table with a clear vision for the film’s release and we feel that we’ve found the perfect partner to take this franchise to the next level.”
CBS Films will release THE LAST EXORCISM PART II wide on March 1, 2013.
I’ve had this conversation on multiple occasions. When it comes to body modification of any kind — tattoos, piercings, etc. — I’m all for it. Go ahead. Cool. Express yourself. Experiment. As long as you’re a consenting adult, it’s your body and your choice. I actually think a lot of it is fascinating, even artistically accomplished. However, this comes with a flip side… I have zero body modifications. No reason. Just a personal choice. Why do I bring this up? Because when it comes to viewing a film like AMERICAN MARY, I can be as supportive and open-minded as I would like, but I’ll always remain someone viewing the culture from the outside. If you’re wondering why that matters, well… it matters a lot if you’re about to watch the sophomore outing from Canadian filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska, whose debut feature DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK (2009) made waves as an ultra-violent indie flick amidst the festival circuit.
AMERICAN MARY begins harmlessly enough. Mary Mason, played by Katharine Isabelle (GINGER SNAPS), is a talented and promising young medical student, relentlessly honing her craft as a future surgeon. It’s a wonderfully uplifting American dream kind of back story, with Mary rising above her underprivileged background to make something of her self. Except there’s a catch… she’s flat ass broke. Bill collector’s harassing her daily, Mary must find a way to bankroll her education if she plans to continue on the path before her. Desperate, Mary succumbs to the monetary allure of selling her body. Mary meets with with Billy Barker (played by Antonio Cupo), unaware that this interview will unexpectedly lead to a much more morally corrupt yet higher paying gig.
With this horrifying experience behind her, and a handful of Benjamin Franklin’s in her pocket, Mary finds the long sought relief she needed, but things are about to change for her in a way she never expected when she is contacted by Beatress Johnson, played by Tristan Risk (DARKEST HOUR). A member of the general “extreme body mod” community, the artificially cute-as-a-cartoon Beatress lures Mary once more into the fray with the promise of deep pockets, but this time her clients are willing recipients of the services she can provide. Mary has one last epiphany, a tragic twist of fate that sends her own American dream down a much darker path as she follows the white rabbit deep into the underground.
The Soska sisters have a distinctly severe and forthright style of filmmaking that’s in your face, yet also carries enough mental meat between the buns to be more than merely visual fluff. The Soska sisters take chances and their stories dwell in the fringes, making for content that’s above the usual mix of shock cinema produced today. AMERICAN MARY is visually stunning, if not often repulsing, revolting or just plain outrageous. The colors of the film accentuate the characters, a vividly bizarre bunch, and the graphic nature of the film has it’s place, making it anything but needlessly gratuitous. On the flip side, the film’s pacing suffers on occasion, the writing is more forced than it is unrefined, and the message could be labeled as being worn too flagrantly on the filmmaking sisters’ sleeves.
It’s evident that the Soska sisters have done their research, even so far as casting members of the extreme body modification community within the film. AMERICAN MARY will likely prove as educational as it is shocking to those unaccustomed to this particular culture, but don’t let this frighten your from taking the chance. While AMERICAN MARY is not a finely-tuned masterpiece, when compared to the sister’s feature film debut, it’s a positive step in the right direction, led — perhaps even greatly benefiting from — a truly riveting performance from Katharine Isabelle, offering a compelling shift in range and an uncanny ability to freak the Hell out of the audience — especially the men — while somehow managing to maintain a hint of the innocent persona we swallow when first we meet her character.
Tristan Risk may not outshine Katharine Isabelle as an actress in AMERICAN MARY, but her presence is far from unnoticed or unappreciated. Beatress’ obsession with looking like Bettie Boop is a scene stealer in her first appearance, easing the audience into what’s in store with the gentle equivalent of a sledgehammer wrapped in a cheesecloth to soften the blow. The Soska sisters themselves make a particularly twisted cameo in the film, depicting a real urban legend within the body mod community. AMERICAN MARY is many things — a graphic horror display, a thriller, an expose of an underground culture, a very dark breed of Aesop’s fable, a revenge tale — but most of all, despite it’s flaws, AMERICAN MARY is a promissory note of better things to come from Jen and Sylvia, the Twisted Twins of terror.
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