CINEMA: All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

Why can’t all teen fodder be of the high calibre of Heathers or Juno? Although ATBLML likes to think it’s hip and savvy and darkly sinister, in the final analysis all it boils down to is yet another teen slasher with sex and drugs and rock n roll thrown in to give it a party atmosphere.Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is the It Girl of her high school. All the boys want to possess her, all the girls want to be her and yet no one can get close.

So when Chloe (Whitney Able) and Red (Aaron Himelstein) invite her to an isolated ranch for a weekend of fun with all their mates the boys are soon jostling to see who can get into her panties first. This, of course, causes some ructions among the girls, but nothing some beer and pills can’t sort out. But then the lights go out and things start to go bump in the night and no one is having fun anymore and we’re suddenly seeing there’s more to Mandy than curves and shiny hair.

Which would all be well and good if you actually believed Mandy Lane was so hot, so sexy, so seductive she could actually justify such adulation. Unfortunately, Heard plays Mandy with all the sophistication and beguilement of a cheerleader with pom-poms on her shoes. Mandy is no diva or sex goddess, she’s more like a woman who has had a personality bypass. Because of this, the ensuing action looks thoroughly clichéd and rings very untrue and when the twist within the twist finally arrives you’ll have gone past the point of caring.

Teen slashers have to be craftier than this to hold a discriminating teen’s attention,  as any 16-year-old will tell you. Dee Pilgrim