Back in 2006, when director Jonathan Levine finished All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, not too many people knew his name. Due to him making well-liked stuff like The Wackness, 50/50, and Warm Bodies in subsequent years though, he’s become a director who has a probably niche, but still substantial fanbase. Because of this we’re finally, finally now getting a release of Mandy Lane, a film that played well at a couple of festivals back when it was first completed, but never got any sort of US distribution afterward. Think of its release as your first Halloween present of the year.
The film stars Amber Heard as the title character, the newly developed virgin girl of her high school who none of the boys have gotten the chance to take a crack at yet. Needless to say, they’re all pretty excited to get their chance—so much so that one has already gone to the lengths of throwing himself off the roof of a house in order to get her attention. Things really get out of hand when she and a group of kids take one of those traditional horror movie retreats off to a secluded house in the middle of nowhere though. What first starts out as a friendly-though-every-man-for-himself competition to see who can be the one to finally get into Mandy’s pants soon turns deadly, and before you know it survival takes the place of sex at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Whose obsession with Mandy is so intense that it would lead them to mass murder? You’ve got to watch the movie to find out. Duh.
But should you watch the movie? Eh. If you’re in the mood for a horror movie, sure. One could do a lot worse. The screenplay, by Jacob Forman, uses the horrors of the male gaze and the destructive properties of female beauty to do some interesting exploration of feminist themes. There are a handful of really fun kills. Plus, Levine brings a sun-soaked jeans commercial aesthetic to the whole thing that can be pleasant to look at here and there. In the end though, despite a handful of moments that rise above the rabble, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is your typical slasher movie that follows your typical slasher movie plot. It’s good for a genre that comes with low expectations, but it’s still firmly entrenched in said genre. It’s got some atmosphere, some squirm-inducing gore, and some boobies, so it’s an entertaining enough watch, but it’s not Cabin in the Woods or anything. It never separates itself enough from what came before it to really blow your hair back. It’s a shame the majority of us couldn’t have seen it with less expectations, back before Levine developed into a much better filmmaker.
