Urban Legend

Unfortunately, Urban Legend suffers from a rather disjointed plot, and the fact that as a pseudo-mystery, they've eliminated most of the suspects by the end of the movie, so you pretty much know who is responsible. The murderer displays all the qualities of a more supernatural killer like Jason or Michael Myers, such as superhuman strength and the ability to be everywhere the plot requires him to be (like being across campus within minutes of each murder). Signposting some of the urban legends would have been helpful (there's a urban legend about a DJ being killed on the air and people thinking it was a hoax???). The cast is likable enough, but only Loretta Devine really stands out. The movie could as easily have been called "Horror Movie Cliche" as "Urban Legend" (or was that subtitle spoken for by Scream?). There are a few cute in-jokes (yes, one of the actresses was in a Noxema commercial). It's generally an entertaining way to waste a couple of hours if you're a horror-slasher fan.

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

I definitely feel that this film gave me nothing. Really nothing. It was full of clichés, as I've mentioned, and there wasn't a plot twist (at least to me).

Firstly, the clichés. I felt that I was watching a film, that desperately wanted to be better than "Scream" and to get all of its cult following. The concept, although it was about urban legends, something that I appreciated, it had many vibes from other slasher films, so I think that it lacks of authenticity.

Second, I knew who was going to die, and I could tell easily, during the film, which deaths were "fake", the ones that wanted to shock you a little bit.

Third, the characters. I mean, they managed to make even the characters to act in a cliché way. There was the serious final girl, the one whom they try to mislead you that he or she is the killer, but he's or she's not. The over the top excited person, the idiot prank boy, the blonde bimbo, the goth, and the a*****e! Nothing new, nothing creative.

As I've said, I knew 90% of what was going to be happen, so I haven't felt any thrilling moment. Except one scene.

Let's say the things that I liked about this film. First of all, the concept of the urban legends it was cool, and maybe the only prototypical. I also liked the first scene. It was actually very thrilling and gave me a very good first impression. The person who played the killer was cool and had good acting skills.

To conclude this review, I want to mention that this film is not necessarily bad, but to me it wasn't good either. It was something between "Scream" and "I Know what you did Last Summer". Plus urban legends. As a person that have seen many many similar Films, I have to say that I kind of knew the flow of the plot, so I did not found it thrilling. If you've never seen similar Films, maybe you'll like it. It's a fun film to watch, if you don't have anything to do.

Urban Legend provides great value as it laughs, cries and scares it way through its running time. A really enjoyable addition to the 'horror smart' teen genre such as Scream and I Know What You Did...

The cast is pretty good as well which helps the film enormously.

Adding Robert Englund to the cast was an inspired choice.

Its good fun like its supposed to be :)

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.