Available at Amazon priced £10.98 from July 21st 2008

Since I saw the cinematic release of this movie I’ve thought about it a few times and, having subsequently watched director Jonathan Levines forthcoming release THE WACKNESS, I am now convinced that this is an average teen slasher script (with the exception of a couple of quality twists which deserve recognition) made into a great movie by a director who is not afraid to experiment and play with the material on offer.

The story is a simple one: Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is the hot high school chick all the guys want, and when one of the kids decides to have a party at his country ranch a few of the guys see it as the perfect opportunity to finally achieve their goal. There’s drugs, alcohol and nudity and it’s all tied together with superficial characterisation and some very cool cinematography.

The scenes of youthful debauchery are, if close of reality for some, pretty gratuitous and some would say a little irresponsible. I’m personally more inclined to see them as standard set-up for the downhill decent into the well-executed slasher killings that are, if a little ordinary, sadly necessary for the teen slasher movie format to work its magic. The banality of the scenes are fortunately tinged with darkness by accentuating the darker side of high school life (the contrastingly heady pleasures and pains as Levine has put it) which is drilled home early by an awesome killing at a pool party. (Not too give away too much but there is a nasty piece of skull cracking in there!)

The ranch killings themselves quickly bring the film up to pace as the dirty, dirty old-school slasher it is and as they euphorically proceed through increasingly inventive killings and clever imagery. And the best part is that the stunning visuals are so absorbing that they totally overshadow the teen angst angle that could have made this movie 100% missable. There is no Tarantino-esque pastiche with all its weighted overtones of ‘cool’, nor is there the wry comedy edge applied to this sort of thing since SCREAM, every scene is just a bunch of intuitive and interesting shots designed to flaunt the gory sheen and attractive cast of the movie. There’s even a CHIEN ANDALOU reference in one of the murders - what more can you ask for?

My personal suggestion with this is to give it a chance next time you fancy watching a simple horror flick: it has some cinematic muscle behind it and will be a great warm up for the playfully styled THE WACKNESS which will be hitting cinemas in late August. But be warned, your tolerance for filth has to be pretty high to enjoy this one!

EXTRAS

Just an interview with the gorgeous Amber Heard… and the obligatory trailers. Seriously Optimum - sort it out!! If any of our stateside readers are looking at this, can you let me know if your version got a better crop of extras, I’ve been informed that us poor folk over here in the UK get a bum deal on a lot of DVD releases.