All The Boys Love Mandy Lane Review

In an age of Internet piracy-defying, worldwide simultaneous releases, teen slasher movie "All The Boys Love Mandy Lane" has taken a suspiciously long time to reach our shores since its U.S. release last Summer. The reason for the delay is the same reason why, despite a disappointing opening stateside, the film has slowly built up quite a following. Namely, in a genre which relies on low production values, it differs by having high production values. However, in this way director Jonathan Levine shoots himself in the foot.

"All The Boys Love Mandy Lane" tells the story of mild mannered teenager Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) who "got hot over Summer" and is now the object of desire of every boy in her high school. Mandy is invited to a party at a remote ranch in Texas, where, shortly after each boy unsuccessfully makes their move on her, the guests start to turn up dead.

The film looks great, with a naturalistic Summer colour palette and judicious use of a handheld camera, but herein lies the problem. It's too realistic. Slasher flicks rely on the audience being at least partly complicit with the killer. One of the main ways they win this complicity is through comic, or at least imaginative, gore. The gore here is well done, but again it's naturalistic and not at all funny. Yes, these kids are annoying. Yes, they're having more fun than we are. However, these are not reasons enough for us to want to see them dead.

Similarly, the realism is not helped by the quality of the cast and the fact that they are all relatively unknown. Michael Welsh is excellent as psychopathic Mandy fan, Emmet. However, his portrayal of a teenage murderer is far too convincing. All of which makes the film strongly reminiscent of recent real life killings such as the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. As if that isn't enough, the movie also manages to touch on the contemporary issue of teen suicide pacts. However, it's still an exploitation movie. There's no message here, which is not to say that all movies should have a message or that the conventions of a genre aren't there to be broken, but in the case of "All The Boys Love Mandy Lane", the timing's just bad.