"ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE" by Jacob Forman
I’d like to tell you about the summer of 2003. “My salad days,” to quote Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, “when I was green in judgment/cold in blood…” Back then, Netflix was not yet a streaming service. “Lions Gate Entertainment” was just months from becoming the largest independent studio in the entertainment business. “Yellowstone” mega-star Luke Grimes had not yet appeared onscreen as an actor – I’m not even sure he had moved to L.A. yet. It was the summer between our first and second years at the American Film Institute Conservatory, and Chad Feehan and I were interns at a major production company on the Paramount lot.
One fine afternoon, the wrong executive got the wrong salad dressing, and all the interns were yanked off whatever important task we’d been assigned to and scattered to every corner of the lot in search of the right vinaigrette. It was in the midst of this fateful errand that an indignant Chad, white-knuckling the wheel of our boss’s really nice golf cart, convinced me to write a horror script inspired by his experiences growing up in Fort Worth, “so that we’ll never have to do this again.” There was a lot of hubris and ambition packed into his pitch.
And it worked.
It worked because of AFI and some exceptional individuals who came together around All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. I wrote and repeatedly rewrote the script in Anna Thomas’s workshop as part of my Screenwriting Discipline thesis requirements. Chad and Brian Udovich used the project to fulfill some of their Producing Discipline thesis requirements, designing budgets and business plans for the film. Tom Hammock created a whole portfolio for his Production Design Discipline thesis requirement, including construction-ready architectural documents for the ranch house and the cattle pit. Hammock also made me watch dozens of horror films that hadn’t been on my radar, like Cut-Throats Nine. These same miscreants who convinced me to write a Texas-based, low-budget, throw-back horror film kept me on track with their stellar notes and their expertise. They remain to this day among my closest friends and collaborators in Hollywood.
The same is true of those other miscreants who then helped us turn that script into a “lost grindhouse slasher classic” or the “love child of Paris Hilton and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” as some have described our little film. Keith Calder, Joe Neurauter, and Felipe Marino were just finishing the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC when they read the script. They offered us exactly half the budget we’d hoped for, and they invited us to build our Dream Team from AFI and shoot the film in Texas.
Jonathan Levine was the first call we made. A wildly talented writer and director from our class at AFI, Levine brought his distinct style and laser-sharp wit to the project, testing out a cinematic language that he’s continued to perfect throughout his extraordinary career. He kept us true to our ambitions to make a good teen dramedy first, and a good horror film second.
AFI taught us how to collaborate, how to stretch a dollar, how to make a film look way more expensive than its actual budget. Everyone wore every hat they could. Udo seemed to always have a C-stand or sandbag in hand. I moonlighted in the art department and on the hazer, which gave me a front-row seat to the genius of Levine, Hammock, and cinematographer Darren Genet. I’ll never know how Darren got us all that film stock or those stunning, vintage, anamorphic lenses, but I do know all the hard work he put into honing his craft. When local rental houses couldn’t provide (read: when we couldn’t afford), Tom taught us to build all the ranch house furniture and those Styrofoam cows. Editor Josh Noyes managed to meld his brain with Levine’s in order to glide us through post and into the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival.
So many other AFI names run through the credits of this film and contributed to its success. Adam Goldman studied film at CalArts, not AFI, but I’d heard his band Bedroom Walls perform “In Anticipation of Your Suicide” long before we shot the film and knew the track would set the perfect tone for our wicked vision of teen cruelty and misery. Adam has remained a dear friend and collaborator, too.
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane launched a lot of careers. This applies to our extraordinary cast, too. Rewatching the film these many years later, I’m dazzled by Amber’s performance. The performances that Anson, Whitney, Michael, Melissa, Luke, Edwin, and Aaron delivered brought so much pathos, viciousness, and fragility to their characters. Anson was already Crossroads famous when we shot the film, but the others were just starting their professional journeys. I’m thrilled by their continued success.
The story of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is the story of a bunch of bright-eyed film lovers who went to AFI and saw a unique opportunity to make our own future. I’m grateful to Lionsgate for this 20th Anniversary Blu-ray™ release, and for giving new audiences new access to this film.