Phil's Halloween Horrors Marathon, Day 14: Phil reviews ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE Import DVD from Optimum Releasing-October 14, 2012

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE
Starring: Amber Heard, Anson Mount, Whitney Able, Michael Welch, Edwin Hodge, Aaron Himelstein, Adam Powell, Luke Grimes, Melissa Price
Written by  Jacob Forman
Produced by Chad Feehan, Joe Neurauter, Felipe Marino
Directed by  Jonathan Levine
Distributed by Optimum Releasing

Hello and welcome to Day Fourteen people! So once again I reached back into my huge stack of DVDs that I picked up at Miss Misery's Days of Terror for today's review. Now I will be reviewing a film that, believe it or not, has been hailed as one of the best indie horror films that has NOT been released here in America! Now I was able to see this movie via an import copy I bought at the convention. Released over in the UK on DVD, it is still unavailable over here. Why is this you may ask? Well then, come join me as I tell you all about a little film called ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE.

Here is the film's official synopsis: The orphan Mandy Lane (Heard) is a beautiful, virgin and pure teenager raised by her aunt, desired by her schoolmates and a close friend of the outcast Emmet Welch). After the death of their high school mate in a pool party, Mandy befriends Chloe (Able), Marlin (Price), Red (Himelstein), Bird (Hodge) and Jake (Grimes). Red invites the group for a weekend party in the isolated ranch of his family, with all the boys disputing who would succeed in having sex with Mandy Lane. They meet the henchman Garth (Mount) that takes care of the ranch and he asks the group to go easy on the drugs and booze. In the middle of the night, a stranger wearing a hood attacks Marlin in the barn; when Jake seeks her out, he faces the killer, beginning a night of bloodshed and terror.

The plot sounds promising, doesn't it? Well, the film itself is utterly fantastic! Again here is a horror film that has a very strong focus on character development. Long before the killings begin, we get to know the teenagers intimately. We are forced to relate to them, and let's face it, we all knew kids like these back in high school. The way they act, they way they speak,  drinking and doing drugs, who can't relate being a teenager?

UK Theatrical Movie Poster (2006)

The acting in the film is top notch! The entire cast turns in a fantastic, but it's Amber Heard who really shins in the film! At the time the movie was being filmed, she was only 20 years old! It's so hard to fathom that this is the same actress who would seduce Johnny Depp's Kemp character from the 2011 film THE RUM DIARY. She looks so young in the film that I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't imagining it! Again a great performance by Heard!

So the film was completed in 2006 and it premiered at several film festivals throughout 2006 and 2007: Toronto Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, South by Southwest Film Festival, and London FrightFest Film Festival. It received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2008 but wasn't released here in the US. Now the film was going to be released in 2007 by the Weistein Company, but due to the failure of GRINDHOUSE (as well as other horror movies) at the boxoffice, they sold the film to Senator Entertainment US. However that company went out of business and the film has been stuck in limbo ever since. The horror website Blood Disgusting as ranked the film "Number One" one their list of the best unreleased horror films for the last four years.

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE is truly a gem of a horror film that, sadly, most horror fans will never get to see. Hopefully, someday, the film will be released here in America, but until then, for all you horror fanatics out there, go find yourself a bootleg copy of the film. For those that own universal Blu-Ray or DVD player that will play import DVDs, go order a copy for yourself and check out this movie! 5 out of 5 stars!! Highly recommended!!

ALL THE GIRLS LOVE MANDY LANE is available as a PAL Region 2 Import DVD on the Amazon website. If you have a region free DVD player, you can purchase a copy at www.amazon.com.

Thanks for reading, an enjoy the screaming!