Ecos en la oscuridad

A frustrating experience, because so many elements are just right. Amber Heard is absolutely perfect in the title role, with a well-balanced mix of class, innocence, beauty and a great sense of mystery, which is absolutely essential to this film. You always feel that there's more to her than meets the eye, and so the film does indeed succeed in holding your interest. Darren Genet's cinematography applies many subtle effects to create an atmosphere of wonder and suspense. A feeling which is strengthened by a soundtrack, consisting mostly of melancholic adaptations of sometimes almost unrecognizable classics.

As a psychological thriller this might have made a very effective movie, but unfortunately there is a pointless prologue which explains too much of what we are about to witness. 'Mandy Lane' gives the impression of an intelligent psychological drama, which the production company felt wouldn't be a commercial success, and was therefore turned into a rather mediocre - and minor - gorefest for the yahoo-crowd. This could have been - and probably should have been - one of this year's best films, but it's ruined by extreme violence and a rather silly finale.

"Mandy Lane" (Amber Heard) is the most beautiful and desired person at her high school and all of the guys lust after her. But while she is nice to everyone she only has one person she considers a friend and he is the social outcast named "Emmet" (Michael Welch). Then one day she surprisingly accepts an invitation to go to a pool party at the house of another student named "Dylan" (Adam Powell) with one provision-that Emmet is allowed to go too. Since Dylan is obsessed with Mandy he reluctantly agrees. Once there Dylan tries to get Mandy to take off her clothes and Emmet interferes. Dylan punches Emmet who then goes onto the roof to get away from the crowd. Eventually Dylan goes up to the roof to try to get Emmet down. Since Dylan is quite drunk Emmet convinces him that Mandy would be very impressed if he jumped from the roof into the pool. Dylan does and bangs his head on the concrete which kills him instantly. Everybody, including Mandy, rightfully blames Emmet. Because of this Mandy decides to start hanging out with some of the more popular students and eventually accepts a weekend invitation out in the country with 3 guys and 2 other girls. What Mandy doesn't know is that the intent of the vacation is to drink and have sex and she is the primary target of the guys. But things begin to take a turn for the worse once they get out there. Anyway, rather than reveal the rest of the story and possibly ruin the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a decent slasher film for the most part. Although some scenes were definitely slow it had more depth than most films of this type. It also had 3 very attractive actresses in Whitney Able (as "Chloe"), Melissa Price ("Marlin") and the aforementioned Amber Heard. The ending is also quite wicked. All things considered then I rate this movie as slightly above average.

Famous for its circuitous route to a wide theater release (it made its film festival premiere in 2006 but didn't debut in theaters until 2013), 'Mandy Lane' became stale before it ever had a chance to be fresh.

It plays to the tropes of many classic horror films, such as, a mysterious killer stalking teens at a party, characters wandering off on their own only to be killed, characters dying after having sex, characters falling down while being chased, etc. The setting and gleaming shots lit by sunlight in the background are reminiscent of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' While it's clear that these tropes of intentionally included, it's unclear what statement they are trying to make.

Are these moments of satirical self-awareness? Are they admiring homages? The film is either playing dumb, or perhaps it's just dumb.

I lean toward believing the latter because of how the filmmakers use Mandy Lane, who is, herself, a horror movie cliche-the American virgin, who is pursued but never caught by horny high school dudes or the killer.

She never becomes more than an idea. We hardly learn anything about her, about why all the boys love her, other than because she's attractive. I suppose that's enough for these teen boy doofuses.

Mandy's character remains partially formed, which might have worked fine if not for the reveal in the third act that doesn't wind up making any sense because there's zero exposition on the motivation. Nevertheless, Amber Heard is the quintessential surrogate for Mandy Lane. She looks the part and (mostly) acts it too.

The rest of the acting is atrocious. They actors certainly play exaggerated versions of dumb drunk high school kids, who are obsessed with sex and are startlingly mean to each other. This should be easy to pull off, but somehow none of it feels believable. The worst offenses occur when the characters transition between drunk/high to stone cold sober in seconds. One guy literally smokes weed for two hours straight and still manages to become instantly sober when needed.

There is also an abundance of continuity issues and logical flaws. The teens steal a keg from a dumpy gas station but drink bottles of beer throughout the night of partying. Plenty of other instances will become obvious when watching.

In addition to these other many flaws, the film's biggest issue is that it fails to ever be scary. Sure, its kills are gory and gruesome, but those moments are nothing but plainly gross. They're too straightforward to be scary. The killer plays a role in this boring, non-scary problem too-no one will remember this killer as the next Michael Myers.

Overall, this is a bland and generic teen horror film. It's suited for an audience that isn't playing close attention and won't question any of the many issues.

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.

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.