I guess horror movies are back in style (or on their way out of style), because there sure are a lot of the recently. Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween: H20... and now Urban Legend. It's starting to make me wonder how many more ideas can the Hollywood horror gurus come up with, and how many more movies will they make after they run out. Although Urban Legend isn't all that original by horror standards, it does have enough to make it a marginal success.
Natalie (Alicia Witt)
This story begins with a college aged women driving down a dark road on a stormy night (how's that for original), as she is driving along she realizes she is out of gas and pulls into a nearly abandoned gas station. Out comes the attendent who is one of the freakiest looking humans on the planet, naturally she is scared. After pumping her gas and checking her credit card he asks her to come into the station, she reluctantly agrees... when they get in the station he locks the door (again thouroughly freking her out) so she maces him, jumps out the window and proceeds to run to her car. After running the guy over and speeding away we hear him yell "WAIT!!! There's someone in the BACK SEAT!!!" As you might of guessed, she drives away and just as she calms down, BAM, she gets wacked with a ax by the guy hiding in the back seat. If this sounds familiar, you aren't alone... this murder is one of the numerous "Urban Legend" deaths that occur in this movie. We then flash to the campus of Pendleton University, a small (obviously rich) college in New England where some friends are discussing the upcoming "Massacre Bash" to commemorate the supposed Stanely Hall Murders that happened decades before. Natalie (Alicia Witt) is the hero/victim, Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) is her best friend, Damon (Joshua Jackson) and Parker (Michael Rosenbaum) are the "druken frat boys", Sasha (Tara Reid) Parker's girlfriend and the school's radio host, and Paul (Jared Leto) is the bright journalism student who thinks the whole thing is a hoax, but is willing to write about it.
Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart)
We soon find out that the women axed in the car was a high school friend of Natalie and she is understandably shaken up. To cheer her up, Damon says he will take her out somewhere if she wants to talk (which she falls for!!!), so we cut to them talking when he tries to put the moves on her, which he gets punched for... when he leaves the car to relieve himself, he is grabbed and hung just above the car with the end of the rope tied to the bumper (Urban Legend #2). She thinks his feet scraping on the top is the killer, so she guns the car and hangs poor Damon from a tree. You get the idea, a series of urban legend murders occur... one where Natalie hears her roommate struggling in the dark, but since she has been yelled at earlier for turning the light on when her roommate is having sex she leaves the light off, when she wakes up in the morning she finds her roommate buchered and the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light" written ont the wall in blood... another with the murdering hiding under the victims car and severing his achiles tendon so he can murder him while emobolized. There really isn't much more then that to the plot until we find out who the killer is... but I can't tell you that
Damon (Joshua Jackson)
Overall I had mixed feelings about this movie. The idea itself is actually very original... an urban legend serial killer... and ther is some clevor writing and casting (Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame as a professor, and Brad Dourif or the voice of Chucky as the gas station attendant). But, the entire novelty of the concept is wasted with murder scenes that aren't frightening, poor writing through most of the movie and a killer that you can figure out before the halfway point. Another thing that annoys me is how they portray the college itself (maybe that's because I am in college, and Pendleton resembles no college or university I have ever seen)... first, the dorm rooms are bigger than my apartment (a two bedroom with a kitchen and a living room) with vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, where have you ever seen dorm rooms like that. Second, there is only one security officer and she works twenty-four/seven, I should hope most colleges care more about the security of their students then that. But that is just a general complaint of mine, a lot of movies misrepresent college. Overall, Urban Legend has its moments, but it also has its faults. I consider it to be a slightly above average movie.
