urban

I loved Scream. As a huge horror fan, I accepted Wes Craven's innovative, sparkling slasher movie gratefully. It was a shot in the arm for a genre with almost both feet in a rather soggy grave. Horror was suddenly back on the big screen, where it rightfully belonged, in all its crimson glory. Of course, with Scream's success came a whole, seemingly never-ending slew of teen slasher flicks, all eager to capitalise on this suddenly rejuvenated sub-genre. There was a time when I looked forward to each new addition, from the Scream sequels to Cherry Falls, but four years and countless other copycats later, I have grown tired of them and truly wish the sub-genre a speedy death. Hopefully, this painful endurable test a.k.a. Urban Legends will hasten the demise.

With their final year at Alpine University coming to a close, a group of film students are struggling to complete their most important movie, a possible contender for the much-coveted Hitchcock award. Amy Mayfield is one of them. When she meets campus security guard, Reese, she learns of the urban legend-inspired slayings on the woman’s last campus and so decides to structure her film around a similar idea. The killings inevitably start, each one echoing various legends, and a whole range of suspects makes itself clear.

Firstly, let me quickly say that Urban Legends is not ALL bad. The opening twenty minutes are occasionally humorous and involve a couple of nicely-staged set-pieces. When the movie gets going however, the entire production falls to pieces. It turns into a rancid mess of moronic characters and turgid mystery. As with its prequel, the leads are mercilessly bland. Of course, it is an unwritten rule that the heroine must be all prim and proper and almost humourless, the witty one-liners are for the support. Here, however, the “comic relief” transcends pathetic. The geeky SFX nerds are two of the most annoying creations I’ve seen on-screen. In fact, I don’t think they could have been any more annoying had Pauly Shore and Chris Tucker played them. The supporting cast in a slasher flick are simply meat, nothing more, nothing less, but as Scream had shown, they could also be interesting likeable meat. Here, the writers have chosen to go the Scream 3 route, simply under-valuing each one, giving them one or two “witty” lines before slicing them up in some insultingly dumb ways. After the first kill scene – a well-shot, highly sadistic romp – each “scare-sequence” is guaranteed to infuriate even the most lenient of viewer. Urban Legends surrenders to the old slasher movie chestnut which implies that, when faced with an obviously homicidal masked maniac, rather than run away, you will simply stand there, accepting your fate as the knife-hook-axe descends. In the end, the killer’s identity will provoke nothing more than a vaguely interested response, the endless red herrings dulling the revelation entirely.

The fact that this movie reeks of predictable redundancy is the least of my qualms. I still can’t understand why John Ottman would get himself involved in such a movie. For those to whom his name will mean nothing, he is the one of the men responsible for making The Usual Suspects the amazing film it is. His tightly-wound editing and brilliant score were a couple of its highlights. Ottman is a man who clearly knows film and it is evident here, in his direction but he is hampered badly by the dead-weight that surrounds him.

The cast here is not really worth mentioning. Most are relative newcomers. Indeed the most familiar name will be Joey Lawrence, all grown up since his days on TV’s Blossom. There are no horror veterans popping up for welcome cameos, or any REAL actors a-la John Neville in the first UL. Instead, Loretta Devine returns, once again in full-on Pam Grier wannabe mode as security guard Reese. She basically goes through the same routine as before, initially cynical at the thought of a serial killer on campus, turning into all-out action woman, as the truth becomes abundantly clear. Her presence is tenuous and increasingly annoying as she stumbles disbelieving into every scene prior to the finale. Also, there is an admittedly surprising cameo from another Urban Legend veteran in the very final scene, something that will receive at best a smile of recognition before a shrug of dismissal.

At the end of the day, I have never believed in bestial necrophilia: this dead horse can NOT possibly take another flogging. I like and enjoy teen movies and hope they will continue in this currently prolific manner but as The Sixth Sense has proven, there is life in the genre outside of crazy knife-wielding maniacs. A ghost story with a Scream-like cast would be highly interesting. The only people who will get anything from Urban Legends are die-hard horror fans and easily influenced teens looking for some easy thrills on a Saturday night.