Amazon.com: An attractive young woman is driving her car on a dark country road and singing along to the radio. She's running out of gas and so she pulls into a gas station (run by a jittery, stuttering Brad Dourif), but then flees what seems to be an attack, only to find the real threat in her backseat: a hooded killer with an ax who takes her head off with a well-aimed swing. You've heard the story before? Not surprising, given that it's one of the more famous urban legends borrowed for Urban Legend, a post-Scream exercise in self-referential horror. The students at an ivy-covered New England college are turning up dead, the victims of a serial killer who murders in the fashion of the "apocryphal" modern myths. It's all for the benefit of good girl with a dark secret Alicia Witt, the sole witness to most of the killings. Doe-eyed Rebecca Gayheart, as her gullible best friend, and Jared Leto, the ambitious campus journalist who tracks down the secret that hangs over the school, lead a cast of pretty young women, hunky guys, and campus characters, notably the suspicious professor Robert Englund, a genre legend in his own right as the star of seven Nightmare on Elm Street films. Take away the cheeky remarks and self-awareness and it's a throwback to the 1970s' rash of teen slasher movies, where sexually active teens are sliced, diced, and otherwise slaughtered in elaborate and ingenious ways. The increasingly preposterous film is no Scream, but the modestly stylish production has its moments. --Sean Axmaker
Urban Legend I saw this movie years ago and for some reason, I wanted to watch it again recently. I love urban legends and horror movies so this movie could do no wrong-yea right. This is a typical late 90's teen horror movie with teenage stars who were hot at the time and basically faded within a year or two. Rooert Englund did a decent job as the professor. The death scenes were creative in the way they were all part of urban legends-duh. Overall, decent but nothing stands out.
Bargain Bin Material It's always interesting to see movies from your childhood again. I remember watching this movie--and really liking it--when I was eleven, so I thought it would be interesting to re-watch this movie as an adult and see if it was really good or... not. Well, it's not even close to as good as I originally thought it to be, but there are some pretty cool ideas here.
Slasher films have all been done before, so you won't find anything utterly new or innovative here, but the overall premise is a very good one. A killer who uses urban legends as a means of killing people is an interesting concept, one that is executed quite well in this film. The execution of the "urban legends come true" scenes are pretty well done, but plot itself, such as the reason behind these murders, doesn't ring true to me. The killer had motivation to kill only two of the people he/she (I use the he/she to avoid spoilers) did kill, but the rest of them... not so much. It can be argued that the killer is just crazy or did it all to torment the main character, but it just seemed like a cheap excuse to show a bunch of kids being murdered in variously innovative ways.
The music is actually pretty good, adding to the suspense and overall feel of the film, but there are a few things that really bring this down. Even for a teen flick, the acting is fairly awful. Alicia Witt as the lead is totally unconvincing, and--I hate to say this because I love My So-Called Life--Jared Leto was not at all impressive. The rest of the cast was hit or miss, with Joshua Jackson (in his short but entertaining roll) being a hit and Tara Reid being a miss (they cast her in that roll for two reasons, and neither is acting talent).
All in all, it's a fun watch, but you'd be better off with Scream, as that movie has less wasn't-supposed-to-be-cheesy-but-it-was moments, better dialogue, and better acting. As for "Urban Legend," if you can find it in the bargain bin at the DVD store, go for it, but otherwise you should pass on it.
4/10
This Movie Is Good I Remember Seeing Joshua Jackson In Those Mighty Ducks Movies And Then Watching This And Wow He Grew up Fast. And Of Course When Jared Leto use to be cute and cool
Typical, cliched, average horror flick - so why watch it? If you enjoy the typical slasher flick that involves a group of teens dying off one by one by an unknown killer, than that is about the only reason to watch this. The only thing that kept me watching was my curiosity of discovering who the killer was, and I will admit, it did actually keep me guessing. When the answer was revealed, I was both surprised and dissapointed, dissapointed how ridiculous the film ends, a little over-the-top with the killer managing to stay alive after getting shot and falling several stories down onto the pavement below.
The film follows a group of college students, mix of males and females, as they all get killed one by one on campus by a cloaked killer, using the "Urban Legends" approach to all the murders. The professor played by Robert Englund (Freddy Kreuger, Nightmare on Elm Street) is easily suspected, because of his fascination with such events. But as a typical horror flick goes, the college students are very B-list actors, with cliched horror film behaviors and personalities.
The fright/scare factor of Urban Legend was rather mild, however, I found the opening scene with Brad Dourif at the gas station to be the best scene of the film with its bit of a clever twist. Unfortunately it all goes downhill from there, and scary moments are either predictable or uninteresting. As for blood and gore, things are very minimal compared to most horror flicks made today.
Urban Legend is very average. Its not very scary, and isn't very interesting or unpredictable. At least the killer was unexpected, but once you discover who it is there isn't much going for this film for a re-watch anytime too soon. One can only imagine how this spawned two more sequals.
1.75 STARS: A decent "whodunnit" slasher, but the ending is lame. "Urban Legend" is similar to the movie "Scream". Both movies are pretty good "whodunnit" slashers that contain classic slasher movie twists. "Urban Legend" is about a group of students at a college where a terrible murder took place about twenty-five years ago. Our brilliant little students start getting killed off one by one by a killer using every slasher cliche imaginable, thus the name "Urban Legend". There are plenty of "red herrings" to go around in this flick to keep the audience guessing, and everything goes fairly well until the unrealistic conclusion where everything is supposedly revealed.
Indeed, like "Scream", the problem with "Urban Legend" is the ridiculous ending when the killer is actually revealed, although I did find "Scream" to be better simply because it was more intricate and had better acting, but that's not saying much. When the killer is revealed and the ending begins to take form, the movie comes off rather ridiculous and lacking in credibility. As with "Scream", the ending of "Urban Legend" brings this movie down quite a few notches, not that it was that good to begin with. Acting, directing and production values are decent for this type of flick. "Urban Legend" does have some entertainment value for its typical slasher format and mystery killer, but it's not a good horror movie. However, if you like modern slashers, it might be worth a rent.
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