Review: ‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’

Travis:

Remember back when teen horror films were actually good? Yeah, I’m starting to have trouble remembering that far back as well. Well, hope is here … Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) is here to save the day with his own addition to the genre and he nails it! Oddly, this was Levine’s first feature film, being released [finally] as his second movie, following up the success of ‘The Wackness’. Welcome back to the essence of teen slasher horror … ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ could only dream of accomplishing this!

‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’ sort of tells you a lot about the movie in its title, but doesn’t give away the best bits. Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is the hottest babe in all of high school … she’s also the hardest catch. Mandy presents herself as a beautiful, but somewhat timid, and if I didn’t mention attractive, blonde hottie that hangs out loyally with her best bud Emmet (Michael Welch). Mandy is sort of the sexy fish out of water at her school, the homecoming queen type that prefers keeping a low profile to being the talk of the town. Emmet, on the other hand, is the typical sweet best friend type of guy that falls somewhere between the jock and the nerd on the personality scale, but hits bottom in the popularity polls. All the boys at school have one thing on their mind, well … yes that, but more soeifically “how to get into Mandy Lane’s pants.”

She does a fairly good job of fending them off, but Emmet occasionally attempts to step up as her noble protector. One day Mandy is invited to a pool party. She accepts, but only under the condition that Emmet joins her. While at the party, the drunken popular boy throwing the party is thwarted by a more clever and less drunk Emmet to avoid his conquering of Mandy’s heart. The result is tragic and Mandy’s friendship with Emmet is destroyed. The fun really begins when Mandy Lane is invited to a weekend party at one of the boy’s ranch. Reluctantly, she tags along. She gradually begins to loosen up, but soon finds herself amidst a group of rowdy teenagers that have all had their numbers pulled. A mysterious killer begins picking them off, one by one, and Mandy must fight to survive. The true mystery, however, is just who exactly is behind the killings?

‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’ is dark, suspenseful, fun, smart, and most important … it doesn’t suck, at all! Cheesiness and over-used cliche’s of the genre are virtually absent. What emerges is the heart of what makes the slasher film tic, the fear of the unknown, the paranoia, the group hysteria, the morbid curiosity of who’s next and who’s responsible. ‘Mandy Lane’ is straight forward and not glitzed up with fancy fluff, but doesn’t pull any punches either. The violence and gore is fully present, but not beyond what is necessary and highly effective. The ending for some, may begin to seem a bit predictable late in the film, but beware your early hypotheses … Levine is clever with his ending, McGuffin-style.

(4 out of 5 stars)

Scott:

Our good friend Jonathan Levine created, in my opinion, one of the best slasher movies of our generation. The movie takes the kinetics of high school, the cliques, and all of the drama that comes with chasing around the unobtainable girl. Mandy Lane is played beautifully by Amber Heard, Her best friend (played by Michael Welch) pulls off the creepy guy feeling and the rest of the cast really falls into its place. Jacob Forman really did a great job not falling into your typical horror stigma’s and threw in a bunch of unique kill techniques. Levine has a great way of getting you into the high school psyche, as he also showed you in ‘The Wackness’.

Travis pretty much said what needed to be said about the movie about, I just wanted to add in my two cents.

(4 out of 5 stars)

[rating:4/5]

Ram Man:

“All The Boys Love Mandy Lane”…yeah because she is gorgeous! Amber Heard is Mandy Lane, the duckling turned smoking hot swan prior to her junior year at highschool. A New Year and she has the looks that kill, why should anyone be suprised when people start dropping dead around Mandy Lane! The past few years filmmakers have forgotten how to scare the audience, so that’s why I’m glad Johnathan Levine (The Wackness) remembers the classics like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, and brings a good scare with some twists to the screen with Mandy Lane.
Mandy and her buddy Emmitt (Micheal Walsh) decide to join the A crowd at school thier junior year. The cool kids Jake (Luke Grimes), Chloe (Whitney Able), Red (Aaron Himelstein), Marlin (Melissa Price) and Dylan (Adam Powell) all welcome Mandy with open arms and take Emmitt along for the ride. The boys have just one goal in mind..to be the first to have sex with Mandy Lane. They fail a swim party, so at a weekend trip to a secluded ranch (less Emmitt) each one attempts to complete the dirty dead. Only this time failure results in death. You may think you know who the killer is, but i asure you Levine has one last suprise for you!
“The Boys All Love Mandy Lane” and I think the girls will to if they can keep thier eyes open during the film. I hope that the hack directors of such tripe films as One Missed Call, Don’t Answer The Phone and Ruins go to the theater and see what a true Horror/Suspense film is suppose to be…TAKE NOTES! Thank Jonathan Levine..your two for two man..Keep up the great work..it makes it fun to be a critic!
(4 out of 5)
[rating:4/5]