The first half of this postmodern ‘slasher’ movie flirts with some intriguing ideas. At a high-school pool party, golden boy Dylan – egged on by weirdo outcast Emmet (Michael Welch) – tries to impress the enigmatic, virginal Mandy (Amber Heard) by diving off the roof – head-first into the concrete pool surround.
Nine months later, Mandy and some photo-fit teen victims – naive jock Bird, airhead blonde Chloe, under-confident shag-beast Marlin, and dumb waster Jake – enjoy/endure a drink- and drug-fuelled weekend at Red’s family’s Texas ranch. Things turn nasty when a masked, shotgun-toting psycho starts picking them off one by one. The prime suspect is handsome ranch hand, Garth, a solid blue collar guy who resents these decadent, privileged teens. Or perhaps someone inside the group harbouring a grudge?
Jacob Foreman’s uneven script shows its hand too early, before destroying our credibility with a final twist that makes nonsense of everything we’ve seen. The film-makers think they are making a serious statement about Columbine-style rampages, but their scuzzy fanboy horror movie is more self-conscious than subversive.