Tous les garçons aiment Mandy Lane

... that is how much the Boys love Mandy Lane. But of course this is not another teen ... I mean romantic movie. Nope this is a horror movie. A slasher to be precise. Now slashers do live with two premises: Either a great twist or original killings. In this case, you kinda have both.

At that is what makes this movie worthwhile watching. Of course it is aimed more at the teen/twen audience, but what slasher isn't. The really illogical things that do happen, stay at a minimum, which is a good thing and the actors fit the bill(their roles), no more, no less than that. If you don't like slashers at all, you should of course stay away from this movie!

This film is definitely unusual. Not a lot really happens, there is a massive amount of time spent getting to know the characters and most of the action is condensed into the last half hour. I am all up for characterisation but there really isn't an awful lot to the characters, and they partake on a whole load of mundane yet embarrassing behaviour. For instance in one scene the girls are talking, one whips down her trousers to sit on the toilet and her friend starts ribbing her about her pubic hair. The film carries on in this general manner, although not graphic or titillating or offensive this snap shot into the lives of over-sexed American teens is just kind of embarrassing to watch (especially with relatives). The camera hovers at breast height for the majority of the film especially when Mandy is running or jumping which is great!, but again makes you feel a bit guilty you are watching so avidly (maybe it is an English thing).

The film gets plus points for...

Good production but not overly glossy.

The gore has been kept down but the murders still make you wince.

Stays inside the classic 90 minute barrier.

Keeps you guessing, you will work out the ending ahead of time but not before mixing it up with lots of other theories.

Over all it is an okay film, takes a while to heat up then burns out fast. No notable moments of horror genius, but no really terrible movie blunders either.

A solid horror, just don't expect too much.

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.

All the boys love Mandy Lane, and the way she is portrayed by Amber Heard, who wouldn't? She's blonde, she's demure, she's so hot that the camera in the movie's introduction to the character, lingered on her T&As. She's a fine athlete though we don't really get to know what kind of graaes she's getting. Every boy in school wants to talk to her, and every one of them wants to get into her pants, earning bragging rights to be the first amongst everyone else to have conquered probably the last bastion of virginity in school. People would do silly things like dying for her too.

In typical slasher flick formula, a group of students, Mandy included, organized themselves for a getaway in a secluded ranch, where a ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount) provides that element of question as to who amongst the group will be the hunter, and who will fall as prey. Like how the formula warns against decadent teenage lifestyles, such as the unwritten rules of having the non-virgin being dispatched first and the likes, you're constantly kept guessing as everyone in the group, save for our goody-two-shoes Mandy, get sloshed in a flood of sin, with the smoking of weed, snorting of coke, being highly sexually charged and active, and downing alcohol as if it was water.

It does take quite a while for the first person to fall, and you probably won't feel much for the characters that had to kick the bucket in the most violent of deaths, which get shown quite graphically, only to pull back at the last minute through visual tricks and edits the filmmakers use. But for slasher flick fans, it's a long ride to get to this stage, and frankly speaking given that the characters all don't appeal to you (i.e. you couldn't care less if they live or die), the movie does seem to coast along the tried and tested, until its last act.

Surprisingly, the narrative decided to reveal its boogeyman quite early on in the film, which provided some perplexing questions. Again for those familiar with the genre, there'll always be a thought niggling in your mind in disbelief that the plot would be so straight forward. Granted as mentioned, the payload comes at the finale, which I thought had two meanings, depending on which concept you subscribe to. First, following reality that the most perverse amongst us tend to be the one most disconnected, and second, punishment coming from someone who doesn't see eye to eye on immoral lifestyles, and want to put a deadly stop to it.

I did see the revelation coming, but for the longest time had decided not to believe my gut feeling in the hopes that it would develop into something that will genuinely blow my mind. It's not perfect, but it did have its moments with the following of recent trends in the slasher genre that bad guys don't have to necessarily finish last. Nothing fanciful here, but it still worked to a certain degree. And kudos to both the casting director in putting Amber Heard in the titular role, and for the actress to pull off one of the more memorable lead characters in such a genre flick.

Better than your average slasher-horror, which doesn't say much. Is a bit deeper than normal in that it has a serious drama angle, in that it tackles the subject of obsession. All this is secondary to the slasher theme, unfortunately. However, a good, unexpected twist at the end lifts this from mediocre to decent.