Mandy Lane is the hottest girl in school though she doesn’t seem to know it and still retains her virginity. She is played by Amber Heard with a remarkably assured blend of vulnerability, unobtainable gorgeousness and simmering ambiguity. The boys in Mandy’s school are so anxious to impress her into bed that, in the opening sequence, her best friend easily persuades a horny doofus jock that jumping off a roof will do the trick. Instead it gives him a slight case of death. Some months later, Mandy is among a group of teenagers enjoying drugs, booze and Truth Or Dare during a wild weekend at a remote ranch. While at least three guys salivate over her, a mysterious killer goes to work.
Jacob Forman’s uncommonly smart script for ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE is perceptive and cynical in its portrayal of high school cliques, bitchiness and hormonal angst. Old-school slasher elements are employed, including voyeuristic p.o.v. shots and red herring characters – though the moodily handsome ranch hand is a far subtler figure of potential menace than all those glowering 80’s slasher caretakers. The film is as much influenced by CARRIE and HEATHERS, however, as it is by the summer camp teen-kill cycle.
Forman has a strong ear for credibly harsh, cruel teen dialogue and unusual deftness in fleshing out the kind of characters who would normally be one-note stereotypes. The “hottie” and “bitch” character types featured in MANDY LANE possess layers and a depth you wouldn’t expect to find in this sub-genre. The interaction between these well acted characters (kudos to the largely unknown cast) proves just as compelling as the unfolding stalk-n-kill scenario.
Director Jonathan Levine is no slouch in the scare department. Minimizing the cheap tricks and goofy shocks that his contemporaries too often rely upon, Levine executes suspenseful murder scenes, sustaining the killer as a creepy presence lurking ominously at the edges of the widescreen frame (a la John Carpenter). Gore is used sparingly but effectively. Levine forsakes elaborate SAW-style sadism and the multi-weapon creativity of Jason Vorhees in favor of brief, startling bursts of brutality : its hard not to wince when a slutty girl is forced to fellate a large gun barrel and a cocky guy gets his eyes slashed to buggery.
The inevitable Big Twist works in this movie, because Forman doesn’t patronize the audience with the now-standard climactic explanatory montage of scenes from earlier in the movie. The climax wisely leaves the audience to come up with their own interpretations of events while reinforcing the established themes of adolescent callousness and the almost mundane realities of physical / mental violence in modern high school life.
The cynicism of the closing moments, ironically accompanied by the innocent 60’s pop ballad “Sealed With A Kiss” also provide one of several examples of the film’s witty use of music. Whereas most of its kind ladle on the hip chart hits with a trowel in the hopes of selling lots of soundtrack Cds, MANDY LANE – one of the best genre films of 2007 to date – incorporates neatly chosen tunes without detracting from the on-screen action.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
