Friday, July 11, 2008

Shawn's All the Boys Love Mandy Lane Review

2008 Movie Review #67 - All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

So this is a movie I've been reading and hearing about for what seems like forever now. The movie just keeps getting delayed although the reviews seem to be mostly positive. It's rumoured to be coming out later this year but it's already been moved from its scheduled August release date so we'll see. Either way I'm choosing to count it as a 2008 movie. So after reading all this positive buzz about the movie I was really curious to see what all of the fuss was about. After watching the movie all I can really say is...I don't get it.

Every year there are a ton of straight to DVD horror movies released. I only see a few of them (some of which have actually been reviewed here) and for the most part they are just garbage in epic porpotions. This movie is a step up, but isn't a whole lot different from the rest of the generic horror we see tossed out.

The movie takes a painfully long time to get going. Instead we just get to spend the first half hour or more (it seems like a fuck load longer anyway) with a bunch of generic unlikable teen characters spouting "funny" one-liners and just generally doing a bunch of shit I didn't care about and certainly didn't feel like watching. These are people I stay away from in real life so why would I want to watch a movie focused on them? At least it does a good job of making you want them all dead.

Thankfully once this happens, it really fucking happens. The kills and gore in this movie are quite good, though after watching Hatchet not too long ago, a little on the meh side at times. If you want to see some fucked up gory shit, check out Hatchet. The killer uses a gun which I have to admit is pretty cool. I've always said that if a horror movie killer had a gun it would be the smartest route, although the movie would be 10 minutes long. ...Maybe that's why they had all the padding in the beginning.

There's also a twist at the end of the movie that people seem very divided on. It's a love it or hate it kind of thing. I won't spoil it here but I wasn't a very big fan of it. It seemed a little tacked on, like the makers wanted people to think their movie was a lot deeper than other horror movies. I don't know it didn't do anything for me but I've seen forums full of people discussing the significance of the ending, so job well done filmmakers I guess.

Whether this movie even sees a theatrical release remains up in the air. If it does, I wouldn't rush to check it out, especially when you can aquire a DVD quality version through other methods. However I don't see why this one couldn't be put in theatres because it's certainly a lot better than Prom Night which got a major release, and did really well. Fuckin Hollywood.

** /5

No comments: