Enfermiza, sexy, elegante y brutal, así se muestra Mary y el mundo decadente que subyace tras esas operaciones ilegales (gozando de una genial y genuina ambientación), personaje interpretado por Katharine Isabelle, joven actriz con sobrada experiencia en el campo del terror independiente y la televisión, hecho que asegura una interpretación, cuanto menos, interesante; actualmente en postproducción, la cinta prevé ser lanzada (probablemente de forma directa al mercado doméstico) a finales del presente año, fechas exactas que se darán a conocer en breve y que cualquier amante del género (un servidor se considera como tal) estará impaciente por saber.
Alguno/a dirá ¿Twisted Twins? ¿Quién demonios son este par? Pues Twisted Twins son dos hermanas, gemelas, sí he dicho gemelas, de Canadá. Amantes del cine de terror, del buen cine indie, de Tarantino y Rodríguez que debutaron en 2009 con el largometraje “Dead Hooker In a Trunk”. Actualmente se encuentran en fase de producción de su nuevo largometraje “American Mary” y con motivo de ello les hicimos una entrevista para conocerlas un poco mejor, saber quién son, que hacen, a dónde van y de donde vienen…que porcierto vienen de Canadá.
Sylvia: Nos llamamos las “Twisted Twins” (lo
que vendría a ser Las gemelas retorcidas) – para nosotras era muy
importante tener una definición muy clara de quiénes somos y qué
hacemos. Desde pequeñas, siempre nos encantó lo terrorífico y el lado
oscuro de las cosas. Hemos trabajado en el cine desde muy pequeñas, pero
no fue hasta más adelante que tomamos el control de nuestras carreras
como escritoras, directoras y productoras. Antes de esto, estábamos
delante de la cámara.
Jen: Supongo que se podría decir que somos
como los Hermanos Coen del terror. Somos las Hermanas Soska. Siempre
nos ha encantado el cine, pero el terror nos atrajo desde bien
jovencitas. Insatisfechas con los papeles que nos ofrecían al ser
gemelas idénticas, pronto intentamos expandir nuestras carreras como
especialistas, formándonos a conciencia en artes marciales. Después de
otro intento insatisfactorio como actrices en una escuela de cine local,
decidimos coger las riendas de nuestras carreras de la mejor manera que
supimos: convirtiéndonos en creadoras. Escribimos, dirigimos,
produjimos y protagonizamos nuestra película de debut: “Dead Hooker in a
Trunk” (sin distribución en españa por el momento, vendría a ser algo
así como Una Prostituta muerta en un maletero). La cinta ya ha viajado
por todo el mundo y se ha presentado en multitud de festivales; ha sido
elogiada por críticos y fans, y galardonada con varios premios; hasta ha
captado la atención del director Eli Roth.
The Soska Sister's second film and a major improvement over their previous work, Dead Hooker in a Trunk.
I've had interest in the film for a long time, but I ended up kind of forgetting about it for a while. I'm pretty sure there was an article on this film in Fangoria Magazine like a year ago. That's what introduced me to The Soska Sisters.
The film follows Mary, a surgical student who is also struggling financially. In her search for some extra cash she ends up at a strip club, but as one thing leads to another it's not what you might guess one would do at a strip club, instead she becomes a black market surgeon. Stitching people up who need sticking, modifying bodies that need modifying. There's a sort of rape and revenge sub-plot going on too that does tie into the main plot though.
The plot is pretty wonderful, kind of a crazy mash-up of films like I Spit on Your Grave, Eyes Without a Face, Re-Animator, The Awful Dr. Orloff. Has a bit of a Cronenberg feel to it too, only slightly though.
It's definitely an interesting plot that deals with many things of the time, i.e., extreme body modification, financial problems, the strive for "beauty". We also get a strong female lead, who is intelligent, sexy, strong, independent, and fucking crazy.
The script is actually very well written and all the dialogue is quality stuff. This is greatly thanks to the wonderful acting that was able to bring the script to life. Katharine Isabelle, who you may recognize from Ginger Snaps, plays Mary. She does an amazing job and really impressed me just how great of a job she does. She kind of reminded me of Zooey Deschanel, not only in appearance but in acting and speech. I'm fond of Deschanel but I dare say I think I like Katharine Isabelle even more.
Not only does the lead role do an amazing job but so does just about everyone else. And they all play a very odd variety of characters that almost feel like they were imagined by a macabre Charles Dickens; you have Tristan Risk playing a girl who altered her appearance to reflect a very bizarre looking Betty Boop; Paula Lindberg play Ruby Realgirl, and tries to make herself a real life Barbie doll, lack of nipples and vagina included (statement as to how far people will go to mimic what the media portrays to be beauty?); The Soska Sisters themselves that cameo as...well, as twisted twins.
There is a dark sense of humor to the film and can actually be quite funny at times, in a very subtle way but an obviously intentional one. This is greatly due to the lead character and her reactions to her situations.
Soundtrack is awesome, it goes for that light-hearted music during a dark scene thing, but it actually works really well here, though I'm not sure I can explain why.
The horror here is definitely body horror, there's no jump scares or anything like that. It's not too scary, I mean obviously it's meant to be unsettling in its nature. The effects at times are really awesome, I'm talking top quality stuff here. Unfortunately there are a lot of cutaways and implied gore, which I wouldn't usually mind too much but being that this is a film that is about a surgeon it's a bit disappointing. There's also some stupid dream sequences but luckily they're not too prominent.
What effects were present were great though, and they should satisfy most. The only people I could see being actually unsettled are those who are not accustomed to the genre; but to veterans there's not much new here effects wise.
For an independent feature the production quality is fantastic. Has a very big budget look, while maintaining that indie charm.
[Spoilers in following paragraph:] Well, let's get to the ending. I was disappointed by it. I keep feeling like I missed something, but it seems that Mary just dies and that's it. I though Bloody Mary was a very memorable character and one of the best Horror characters we've had in a long time, and one of the best women of Horror ever. I thought this character could have gone a lot further than just this film. Besides that though, the ending isn't really satisfying. It's just...an ending and nothing more. []
American Mary is stylish, well-written, bloody, and hosted by a cast of characters that feel like they were imagined by a macabre Charles Dickens. There's not much bad about it, and though I wouldn't call it perfect or amazingly original, it's still very much worth watching and one of the best horror films I've watched this year, if not the best. The Soska Sisters are definitely talented and have my ticket purchase for any future films of their's.
The directorial debut from the Soska Sisters, and one with an extremely intriguing title at that. For those who don't know me, I'm the type of guy that watches films with titles like "Dead Hooker in a Trunk".
The plot follows fours friends, all nameless and all seemingly intentionally stereotypes (after all they are creditted as Badass, Geek, Druggie, and Goody Two Shoes), who suddenly discover that there is, in fact, a dead hooker in their trunk. Then, as you might expect based off their stereotypes, there is a fair amount of conflict as to how they should actually handle the situation. Shit gets crazy and there's a lot of weird stuff that happens.
Quite honestly the plot isn't anything special. It's muddled, silly, and, due to the writing, lacks a complete lack of logic. The characters are pretty poorly acted for the most part, expected from most films of this nature. The characters' continuity is also awful. One minute you have a girl calling the cops and the next she's dragging a dead body around.
There's also this weird back-story going on that's never fully developed, with the twins when they were young and killed there father. I just felt that that was a bit unnecessary.
I will say this: the second half of the film I found to be greatly better than the first. The second half just seems to do everything better.
I hated the soundtrack in the first half. It was this generic emo/metalcore stuff, which I'm sure must have been local bands. I'm all for local bands in films, I think it adds a layer of personality to a film, but here it's just bad. The second half of the film, however, actually has a soundtrack I quite enjoyed.
Could be wrong here, but it seemed like very soothing music would play when a 'good' character is talking and much more loud, raw music would play when a 'bad' character was talking.
There were actually some cool scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed the scene with the power tool, or the scene where they show how the hooker died. And, of course, that awesome drop-kick part. Give me a movie with a drop-kick in it and I'll watch it. These scenes, the former two in particular, lead me to believe that the Soska Sisters do have potential.
Oh, and the religious character actually was kind of funny in the second half. He definitely went a bit crazy. Overall though it's not a very funny film; didn't get many laughs out of me.
Cinematography in here... amateur. I'm usually not a fan of films shot in digital. It can work fantastically sometimes (see Inland Empire, Lars Von Trier, Harmony Korine) but sometimes it can be really awful (see just about any found footage horror film). This film is somewhere in between the two extremes. It's not terrible. The camerawork is a bit annoying, with tons of close-ups that can get a bit headache-y.
There's a lot of shaking in the camerawork, with a kind of Dogma '95 feel. Doesn't really work here though. Dogma '95 is meant to have a film appear as close to reality as possible, but this film is just so over-the-top that I would have rather just seen some generally good cinematography. I'm sure a lot of this was due to budget limitations though, so I'll give them some slack.
There's somewhat of a religious overtone going on here. I'm not religious in any sense of the word so I kind of just zoned out on the symbolism and stuff. But that's a good thing. That's how you properly add religious themes to a film. It's there for those who want to look for it, but it's far from necessary for those who'd rather do without it. Isn't it nice when a film doesn't blatantly shove their morals down your throat? So, kudos in that regard.
The fight scenes were very realistic. As far as I could tell they were actually punching dudes in the head and stuff. Cool. There's enough blood and gore to satisfy and gorehounds, and it's pretty well done too. At times it can seem a bit silly though. For a very low budget film I must compliment their use of effects.
The film is cheesy, but not necessarily in a good way. It's not funny cheesy or campy cheesy it's kind of just bad cheesy. It's a bit over the top but most of it is stuff we've seen before. Acting has a bit of a mumblecore feel, or I guess mumblegore in this case. I didn't find the acting to be anything special.
The Soska Sisters do have my interest though. And I may not have been too fond of their debut, but I'm looking forward to their future work. I can sense a very interesting style underneath it all and I'm anxious to see if it blossoms. Their second film, American Mary (2012), seems to be much more appealing and I will actually be going to see it tonight (as of this writing) and I'll have a review of it soon.
So, it's hard to recommend Dead Hooker in a Trunk. It's not great writing or plot and the first half is pretty awful. Things do pick up in the latter half of the film and manages to have its own charm. It wouldn't hurt to give it a watch, you'll definitely find some enjoyment in it.
Pros:
+Second half of the film is highly watchable
+Some very, very awesome scenes
+Pretty good effects and gore
Cons:
-Mediocre acting
-Amateur, and at times annoying, cinematography
-Meh plot & writing
ENLACES/FUENTES:
http://cosmiccatacombs.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/american-mary-2012-review.html
http://cosmiccatacombs.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/dead-hooker-in-trunk-2009-review.html
http://www.diosesymonstruos.es/2011/07/entrevista-a-las-hermanas-soska-twisted-twins-parte-i/
http://www.diosesymonstruos.es/2011/07/entrevista-a-las-hermanas-soska-twisted-twins-parte-ii/
http://film.thedigitalfix.com/content/id/76100/american-mary-in-january.html
http://lazonamuerta-cine.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/american-mary-jen-y-sylvia-soska-2012.html
http://mshayleyr1989.wordpress.com/tag/soska-sisters/
http://thepiratebay.se/search/DEAD+HOOKER/0/3/200
http://www.patatabrava.com/canals/cine/american_mary__las_hermanas_soska_regresan_con_fuerza-p35753.htm
http://therealmcast.com/tag/soska-sisters/
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-soska-sisters
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=videos&search_query=soska+sisters&high_definition=1&uni=3
Canal de Youtube @ http://www.youtube.com/user/twistedtwinsstudios/videos
Twisted Twins Productions | Jen & Sylvia Soska @ http://www.twistedtwinsproductions.net/
Originalmente publicado en: http://www.foroaudioyvideo.com.ar/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=838&p=14498#p14498
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