All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

All the boys love Mandy Lane, and the way she is portrayed by Amber Heard, who wouldn't? She's blonde, she's demure, she's so hot that the camera in the movie's introduction to the character, lingered on her T&As. She's a fine athlete though we don't really get to know what kind of graaes she's getting. Every boy in school wants to talk to her, and every one of them wants to get into her pants, earning bragging rights to be the first amongst everyone else to have conquered probably the last bastion of virginity in school. People would do silly things like dying for her too.

In typical slasher flick formula, a group of students, Mandy included, organized themselves for a getaway in a secluded ranch, where a ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount) provides that element of question as to who amongst the group will be the hunter, and who will fall as prey. Like how the formula warns against decadent teenage lifestyles, such as the unwritten rules of having the non-virgin being dispatched first and the likes, you're constantly kept guessing as everyone in the group, save for our goody-two-shoes Mandy, get sloshed in a flood of sin, with the smoking of weed, snorting of coke, being highly sexually charged and active, and downing alcohol as if it was water.

It does take quite a while for the first person to fall, and you probably won't feel much for the characters that had to kick the bucket in the most violent of deaths, which get shown quite graphically, only to pull back at the last minute through visual tricks and edits the filmmakers use. But for slasher flick fans, it's a long ride to get to this stage, and frankly speaking given that the characters all don't appeal to you (i.e. you couldn't care less if they live or die), the movie does seem to coast along the tried and tested, until its last act.

Surprisingly, the narrative decided to reveal its boogeyman quite early on in the film, which provided some perplexing questions. Again for those familiar with the genre, there'll always be a thought niggling in your mind in disbelief that the plot would be so straight forward. Granted as mentioned, the payload comes at the finale, which I thought had two meanings, depending on which concept you subscribe to. First, following reality that the most perverse amongst us tend to be the one most disconnected, and second, punishment coming from someone who doesn't see eye to eye on immoral lifestyles, and want to put a deadly stop to it.

I did see the revelation coming, but for the longest time had decided not to believe my gut feeling in the hopes that it would develop into something that will genuinely blow my mind. It's not perfect, but it did have its moments with the following of recent trends in the slasher genre that bad guys don't have to necessarily finish last. Nothing fanciful here, but it still worked to a certain degree. And kudos to both the casting director in putting Amber Heard in the titular role, and for the actress to pull off one of the more memorable lead characters in such a genre flick.

Before renting "All the boys love Mandy Lane", I saw its trailer in the YouTube to check it out. Good cameras, interesting story and there were some good reviews in IMDb. Well, maybe I was in for a surprise. You never know. So I took the risk and rented the film. But in the first moments of the film, I noticed that this one was not different at all - it was just another brick in the wall.

To begin with, apart from the differences of sex and looks there's nothing to really differentiate the characters in this film. Other films are able to provide simple characters (even if one-dimensional ones) with whom we can identify with. This film gives us a very superficial glimpse of the characters, their relationships, conflicts.. What we see in "All the boys love Mandy Lane" is just a bunch of stereotyped American teenagers like we've seen so many times before.

And how is Mandy Lane? Mandy Lane, as portrayed by Amber Heard, is just your typical high school girl. There are many girls like her - in any high school there are dozens of Mandy Lanes. Amber Heard has nothing really distinctive about her. She's pretty, that's all. Then, why do all the boys love Mandy Lane? This is a film, that's why.

That said, let's go to the film. As you well know, all the guys are mad about Mandy Lane. The boys (with the help of the girls) prepare a party. Mandy Lane is invited to this party. The party is to take place in an isolated ranch. No one had succeeded till now in scoring Mandy. The objective of this party is to ease things out. A girl in the group wants to make it with a guy, there are rivalries, frustrations, and last but not least, there's someone that loves Mandy so much that he/she is ready to kill for her. But make no mistake, anyone will guess from the beginning who the killer is, but prepare yourself for a wild twist that will put everything upside down.

If the script had managed to give us flesh and body characters and describe in more detail the relationship among the characters (their emotions, their conflicts...), this film could have been a memorable slasher teen flick. Had the film been done in the right way, there would be in it a growing sense of fear, of encirclement. Conflicts, fights, suspicion, and death advancing on and on.. outside just the empty fields... but the film is unable to build up the suspense.

"All the boys love Mandy Lane" is just a passable entertainment and nothing more. If you want to see a film with more substance try "High Tension" (Haute Tension), a very good french slasher flick.

I'll start off by saying the bar was set pretty low for this flick. While I love horror, slasher horror is one of my least favorite types. What made this film for me (along with several other reviewers) is the cinematography. It's a real visual treat - pretty in parts, gritty and terrifying in parts, with a "we're stuck in the middle of dry, dead earth" type of despair to it.

I didn't want to think Amber Heard did a good job. I don't think the role of Mandy Lane required much but a really beautiful girl (which she is), but her delivery and execution is spot on. Michael Welch held his own and all the supporting kids were believable.

When the killings start, it's pretty obvious who is doing it. The first murder is particularly brutal. The "twist" is not much of a twist, but it's well executed.

I had a lot of problems with the dialog, but then, I have a lot of problems listening to teenagers talk in real life. So I'm betting the dialog was pretty standard and not as cringe-worthy as I thought. I'm not familiar with the writer (Jacob Forman) and originally decided to watch this movie because I mistakenly thought Jonathan Levine wrote it. He directed it, but I like his writing (The Wackness, Warm Bodies).

Certain parts drag - I get that we need to build that droning, neverending party feeling but I wish there was a way to do that without a droning, neverending party. There is a lot of violence but it's....muffled. I don't know how else to describe it. It's effective because taking the edge out of it makes it seem more real.

If you like horror movies, you might like this. If you like slasher movies, you will probably like it.

Better than your average slasher-horror, which doesn't say much. Is a bit deeper than normal in that it has a serious drama angle, in that it tackles the subject of obsession. All this is secondary to the slasher theme, unfortunately. However, a good, unexpected twist at the end lifts this from mediocre to decent.

Yeah, I'll admit it. My headline is lamer than this movie could ever be. Truth be told, "All The Boys Love Mandy Lane" isn't a complete catastrophe. In fact it starts off quite promising. The cinematography is nice, the music and sound effects are effective and the characters are introduced and played well by the actors and actresses. Unfortunately, as soon as they arrive at the country house where the all the "horror" ensues the movie loses direction and gets boring.

Most of the time "Mandy Lane" seems like a nostalgic hymn to the wild and careless life of young people. That's all nice and dandy for a while but as the movie drags on and you're neither scared nor thrilled you start wondering what the point is. It's almost as if director Jonathan Levine had wanted to remake "The Virgin Suicides" with a few lame killings thrown in instead of suicides.

After a fairly acceptable twist the movie drags on even longer. It just won't end until it finally does, leaving you baffled as to whoever thought this would make a good ending. If it's true what a friend told me, that this script had been rewritten 18 (!) times, then, Jesus Christ, I don't wanna know what the first draft looked like. The result is unfortunate, since direction and cinematography are quite good, as mentioned above. With a better script this movie might actually have become something special. However, as it is "Mandy Lane" is an anti-climatic rehash of 80s slasher flicks that have been done before and better.