All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (18)

Just in case there was any doubt about his heroine's general hotness, as advertised in the title, Jonathan Levine begins his teen horror flick with a shot of Amber Heard's derriere.

He follows this with an in-depth look at her cleavage and throws in some slo-mo undressing to seal the deal. We get it: Mandy Lane has not been whacked by the ugly stick, and every boy in high school longs to hear her views on subprime mortgages and their part in capitalism's downfall. Or something like that.

After the school scenes the action moves to a ranch, where a group of spoiled teens, plus the virginal Mandy, are spending the weekend. Sexual tension fills the air, and if that's not enough to occupy the group there's a nutter on the loose.

Debut director Levine takes an age to get his film into gear, devoting so much time to the dreary yakking of his hormonally charged dunderheads one almost longs for the carnage to kick off. Amid the gore there's a half-hearted attempt to highlight teen alienation and the pursuit of celebrity through mass murder, but it's really just an excuse to have girls in their underwear run around screaming.

Welcome to Benny Hill, with blood.

You would have thought that after Scream it would be very difficult to do a conventional slasher film.

The genie is out of the bottle and we know how the trick is done, hence the rise of torture-porn such as the Saw and Hostel franchises, which substitute excess for craft.

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is a refreshing and very successful attempt to make a conventional slasher film. It follows all the conventions of the genre, but without any nods to the audience; it is as if Scream never happened.

Mandy is a pleasant but unremarkable young woman who, through a combination of hormones and circumstance, suddenly becomes 'hot'. During the summer holiday she becomes the centre of attention. As the title suggests, all the boys love Mandy Lane, but someone loves her enough to kill for her.

The body count rises as the film reaches an ending that may seem a little unsatisfactory but leaves the way open for a sequel.

The film is well-written, smartly directed, really well photographed and plays like a welcome breath of bloody but fresh air in a tired genre.