Yeah, usually y’all wouldn’t be seeing anything beyond Day 31, but, in case you forgot, this year’s special: we’re rocking 100 days of Nightmare Fuel, so press on we shall! And today, we’ve got a flick that many tend to pass over, what with its horror cred being somewhat tangential and/or incidental. As we’ve come to find, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.
Well, not all the boys: This thing, believe it or not, was finished sometime in 2006, but its distributor went bankrupt after buying it from the Weinstein Company. On a shelf it would be doomed to sit until 2013, when the Weinsteins finally bought the film back and quietly released in the autumn of that year. The wait may have helped slightly, as in that time star Amber Heard was gaining notoriety, but still, that’s an awfully long time to just malinger in cinematic purgatory. Hell, I’d never paid it any mind until seeing Cecil Trachenburg made an episode of his excellent Exploring… series on it (which you can and probably should see here). It’s out there now, though, so let’s celebrate whilst we can.
The story centers on, you guessed it, one Mandy Lane. See, Mandy was something of a nobody in school, but she, shall we say, developed over summer vacation. Now, she’s the target of every horny high schooler’s gaze. At first she’s invited to a pool party by one of the popular guys, but she only goes along if she can bring her friend Emmet with. Young Emmet hasn’t quite developed as much or as well as Mandy, and he’s bullied by the popular folk, being saved only through Mandy’s intercession. Emmet gets his vengeance, though, by convincing his drunken tormentor to jump into the pool off of the roof, resulting in an “accidental” smacking of skull on concrete pool edge. We jump to months later, with Mandy befriending the friends of the fallen popular jerk and Emmet on the outside looking longingly in. Mandy’s invited to a get-together at a secluded ranch (where else?), and she travels there with a group of horny popular asshats, the guys all looking to get with her, natch. As the evening progresses, though, these teens begin to die one by one. Who’s taking them down and why? The answer may actually surprise you (seriously, though not at first).
Now, I know, this sounds like just some paint-by-numbers slasher film taking advantage of barely-legal eye candy (Amber herself, one of the younger cast members, turned twenty when the film was finished, but they’re all meant to be high-schoolers, remember). But what this film does is take that template and use its tropes to dissect, comment on, and pretty much insult toxic masculinity (and, if it’s actually a thing, toxic femininity … maybe I’ll just go with toxic gender concerns or something like that) and the male gaze. We run the gamut here, from the out-and-out cocky jock to the smarmy smoker all the way to the always-skeevy “nice guy”. All of them covet Mandy in their own respective ways, but they always do so with an eye toward having her, possessing her in some way, based on some level of attraction and masculine id. It’s a surprisingly nuanced take on the subject, especially considering the film was made by a bunch of fellow dudes, and the seeming subtext never stays fully subtle. Indeed, the very indulging in the usual male gaze-y stuff the filmmakers engage in points a finger squarely at the audience, demanding why it’s fine to enjoy films with such imagery if it’s ostensibly taboo in real life (and even questioning if such a view is genuinely held by the viewer). All that, and it’s a decent slasher in and of itself. Not a bad achievement, guys.
I did, however, take some issue with the soundtrack. Throughout the setup, we’re presented with a pair of covers of America’s “Sister Golden Hair” (a banger, to be sure), and we’re seemingly led to believe that the finale will finally erupt in that classic America goodness. Nope! We get the Polish Prince hisself, Bobby Vinton, covering Brian Hyland’s “Sealed with a Kiss”! The audacity of the double cross! And with a cover, no less!
That aside, though, I was more than pleased with Mandy Lane. It’s a solid teen slasher that just so happens to come with an extra helping of social commentary. Gotta love it. Give it a shot, kiddos, it’s worth it.
Allusions of Grandeur 