Leyenda urbana

Ah our precious 1990's, so many great things came out of this memorable decade, including a streak of teen slasher films. Let's face it, after the mega success of Scream which opened the doors once again after Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street, we needed a new classic. So naturally all the screen writers who were a bit scared to present their ideas on the table, thanks to Kevin Williamson, the clever writer of Scream and Dawson's Creek. After that, every teen slasher film was released: the Scream sequels, I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, etc. But we didn't stop at that, we were now presented with Urban Legend.

The film begins on a dark and stormy night as college student Michelle Mancini realizes she is near empty while driving in her car. There's someone in the back seat as Michelle drives, a figure in a dark coat with a fur trim around the hood sits up in the back seat and, with a swift blow from its axe, decapitates Michelle. The same night, on campus, a group of friends listens to Parker Riley tell an old story about one of the campus halls, Stanley Hall. According to the story, in 1973, an abnormal psychology teacher went crazy and killed all the students living in an on-campus residence hall. Paul, a school paper journalist thinks the story is bogus. Still, the story sticks in their minds, especially for Natalie, and Brenda. The next day, the front page of the campus newspaper has an article about Michelle Mancini's murder written by Paul but the papers are quickly confiscated by school officials. Later that night after going into a secluded area of woods to talk, Natalie reveals to Damon that she knew Michelle, but they hadn't spoken in years. Damon, playing on Natalie's vulnerability, tries to make a move on her but she rejects him. Upset, Damon goes into the woods to urinate but is attacked by the killer. He then is hung from a tree in a noose with the rope attached to the bumper of his car. The next day, no one believes Natalie's story due to Damon's penchant for pranks and tricks. Realizing both Damon's death and Michelle's murder closely resemble famous urban legends, Natalie goes to the library to read up on urban legends. Not realizing the terror has just begun to scare her and her friends even more.

Basically, Urban Legend didn't stand out against it's competitors, it has every cliché in the book. Not to mention no memorable actors that had the same chemistry as the cast of Scream. It's over written at times and has every predictable moment: the friends don't believe in a ghost story, a couple people get killed off but everyone thinks it's a prank/fake death, a classic chase scene with a big breasted girl in a skimpy costume, the creepy janitor, the smart girl that no one believes is all of a sudden right about all the murders and of course a mega twist ending that no one will ever see coming! OK, Urban Legend isn't a horrible movie, while it has all these predictable moments and clichés, it's still actually fun to watch and a good part of the memory of good teen slasher films that came out of the 1990's.

6/10

Urban Legend is pretty much like Scream, but a lot less meta and a bit more atmosphere, unfolding as you'd expect it to, with a group of college kids getting killed in bizarre circumstances that all relate to half whispered local myths. One of their professors is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, and who better to lay down the tongue in cheek groundwork than such a familiar face and expressive, dynamic presence like him. Looking back on this it's fairly shocking how terrific of a cast it has and how it's been mostly forgotten in the annals of slasher archives. Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid, Natasha Gregson Warner and Danielle Harris headline as the varied campus rats, with Harris a standout as the obnoxious bitchy goth stereotype, far from her timid Jamie Lloyd in the Halloween films. There's a prologue cameo from horror vet Brad Dourif as well as appearances from Loretta Devine, Julian Richings, Michael Rosenbaum and a priceless John Neville, getting all the best lines as the college's salty Dean. The kills are all done in high 90's style, the story takes a Scream-esque twisty turn in the third act and as far as atmosphere goes, it pretty much outdoes the ol' ghostface franchise. Spooky good time.

Back in the day, the best horror films were Hitchcock movies, like "Psycho" and "Frenzy". Even after Hitchcock, "The Exorcist" was frightening, and Brian DePalma made scary stuff like "Dressed to Kill". Now, we've hit the bottom of the barrel.

If a bunch of people being hacked up is scary to you, then this movie (and about 100 other wastes of film) should be right up your alley. The only thing that was remotely scary in this movie was the acting.

And just for the record, any movie that microwaves a poor, helpless dog should be banned. Kill all the people you want in these slasher flicks, you can even hack up cats/birds/hamsters/manatees you want, but leave dogs alone.

The days of low-budget slasher films appear to be back with Urban Legend, a mildly entertaining but mostly lame variation on Scream with an attractive cast of young TV stars.

The plot centers on a series of campus murders in the mold of urban legends, most of which will be familiar even to the younger audience this is pandering to. What little suspense there is comes from the anticipation of these scenes, since the surrounding story is almost as ridiculous as the film itself.

If the screenwriters had concentrated less on incorporating the whodunit aspect into the plot and more on the legends themselves, they might have had something here. Experienced viewers will spot the killer's identity (and motive) early on, and those that don't will be fooled only because the conclusion is so completely ludicrous, not to mention mostly impossible.

Of course, most of this would be easily overlooked if Urban Legend was scary, but time and again, director Jamie Banks telegraphs the surprises far ahead, and doesn't know how to time the shocks. Over and over we get the sudden burst of loud music followed by a character running into another character, but it doesn't work. And that gets annoying after the third or fourth try. Occasionally Banks does get something eerie going, but the style is more suited to an action flick.

Of the cast, most of the actors more or less get by despite a less-than-clever script, though it's disheartening to see a talented young actor like Jared Leto wasting his time with a nothing role as the reporter. Horror favorites Robert Englund and Brad Douriff pop up in cameos, adding a nice touch to their brief scenes.

What we're left with is an intriguing idea undone by cliche after cliche. The legends are potent enough to hold your attention to the end, and horror fans will find a few gruesome goodies to amuse themselves. And even though the script needs to be about three times again as clever as it is, there is a great in-joke at the end about one of the actresses and a commercial.

That clever scene might have been the first scene of a clever movie. It's the last scene of this one.

Urban Legend was a wonderful storyline, but the movie focused more on the killings and gore rather than the extremely creative storyline. The idea for the story was very original, with a fresh young cast, but the movie lacked in attention getters, after all if you have seen on slasher film you have seen them all right??

The cast was very well-structured, Joshua Jackson did a wonderful job, although his part was robbed of its acting integrety. Natasha Wagner and Rebecca Gayheart were excellent characters that needed to be developed more. Jared Leto did a wonderful job and his acting ability really shone through.

All in all Urban Legend is an excellent date movie, or a chance just to hang out with friends, but if you are looking for a fresh new addition to the slasher genre, I suggest that you look somewhere else.

As for the people who are comparing this film to the Scream series, I must say that I see where you are coming from, but remember that Scream isn't as original as it seems either. Let's not forget, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween and the ground breaking movie The Exorcist, which all had a grasp pn the horror genre long before Kevin Williamson and Scream. Urban Legend, I thought, had more of an intriguing plot line, but was disappointed to see it left so undeveloped. And people mentioned, why did every character have that parka? Easy answer...the same reason everyone in Scream had those boots!!!

On a scale of 1-10 (1 being yawn, and 10 being nightmares) I give this film a solid 7