Delayed Reaction: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

The Pitch: A slasher but with a different kind of final girl.

A group of high school students visiting a ranch get slowly picked off by a disgruntled classmate.

This movie premiered in 2006 but wasn't released in the U.S. until 2013.

It's that kind of movie.

Given all the Weinstein connections to it (the company bought the movie, sold it off, then bought it again for release in 2013), I keep waiting to hear some story about Harvey Weinstein trying to torpedo Amber Heard's career. However, it appears the main thing standing in this movie's way is that it's only OK and had some bad luck.

I appreciate the attempt to turn the Final Girl trope on its head by making Mandy Lane the mastermind. That does mean the movie suffers from the problem of a lot of twist movies though. Since Mandy has a secret to keep, the movie sidelines her or avoids giving her perspective on things. So, when it reaches the point where all is revealed, I wasn't all that surprised. Since I didn't really know the character, it's hard to be surprised by anything she does. She is still a blank slate late into the movie. Her defining characteristic is that every guy wants to sleep with her. I think the idea was that she upends that, like a send-up of the male gaze or something. I'm not sure it really pulled that off.

I'd like to sidebar for a moment to talk about Amber Heard. Why do we know who she is? It's a weird career. She has a lot of roles that are functionally "She sure is pretty". Other than Mandy Lane, there aren't a lot of movies that give her the lead role (and Mandy Lane isn't a true lead role). She tried a couple times to shift over to being a TV star that haven't worked out, and those roles also really just wanted her because she was pretty (Remember The Playboy Club?). She seems to be aware of this and has snuck in some good, often small roles that let her flex different muscles. She's pretty funny in limited use in Pineapple Express and Zombieland. Syrup weaponizes her attractiveness in an interesting way. So, by the time she shows up in Aquaman and is the best part about the movie, it's both surprising and not. By Aquaman, she's a known quantity. I'd seen her in enough movies to figure she had the chops. She's been the lead a lot, even. But she also hadn't been taken seriously before that. I don't know what point I'm trying to make. I guess it's that I hope I start seeing Amber Heard in more roles post-Aquaman in which her attractiveness isn't the focus.

As for this movie, it does deliver on its title and finds a new enough slant on a tired story to be worth watching.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend