Before I even start this movie, let me make a note right now that I have this looming sensation that pain and terror are in the wings for me. I should probably get the steel spike ready in case a impromptu lobotomy or massive corinary trauma is required. For those of you lucky enough not to know what this movie is, let me put it like this: after the success of Scream, hailing the "rebirth" of the teenybopper slasher genre that supposedly died out in the late '80s, there were bound to be the bastardized offspring, just like the zombie flicks that followed the success of Romero's "Dead Trilogy", though they could not copy that success. Scream not only unleashed such poseurs as I Know What You Did Last Summer and this movie,Urban Legend, but it, and both these step-children, each had at least one sequel with which to torment horror fans like myself further. I can respect Scream for sparking renewed interest by the mass media for horror, but I think the negative implications are far worse. Urban Legend is just one of these negative implications.
Our movie opens like any bad teenybopper slasher movie would (very similar to the Drew Barrymore opening of Scream), as a tone deaf college girl comes upon a lonely gas station in the middle of a dark and stormy night... already I'm tempted to reach for that steel spike... The girls paranoia and ignorance gets the best of her, as she maces the creepy stuttering station attendant and runs him over, only to discover... the real menace is in her backseat. Speaking of said menace, he/she/it decapitates the girl with an axe. Pardon my common sense, but wouldn't it be smarter, NOT to kill the driver of the automobile you are in while they're still driving?! Satan forbid that even the killers in these damn movies should have an ounce of brain power beyond the ability to hack and slash.
Speaking of our 'B' class... no, 'C' class slasher, allow me to introduce you to him/her/it: well, let's establish a name for our psycho first. I ordain this killer, "Urban Legend Crazy-person of Evil Reference", or “ULCER”, which is what this person gives me. If you thought Jason Vorhees’s hockey mask was scary, if Michael Myer's Shatner mask gave you chills, if Leatherface's jigsaw visage left your panties packed with shit, then prepare to recoil in abstract fear and terror at this rookie's wardrobe of choice: a bulky hooded-jacket, ski mask, and sunglasses... and the terror just gets more abject and spine tingling, because... the hood has a fur lining. I can feel my urinary tract quivering as I type this...
As for Ulcer's stalking grounds, we go to the quiet little academic community of Pendleton University. Here he/she is killing his/her victims using urban legends as his/her motivation. You know, those stories like "the escaped serial killer with a hook for a hand stalks the teenage girl and her jock boyfriend" or "the babysitter gets menacing phone calls from a killer inside the house" or "demons from Hell live at the local rest home and sell overpriced and bad tasting ice cream to innocent children while their parents eat their pet gerbils". Okay, so that second one isn't really an urban legend (it happened to my cousin's neighbor once), but you get the idea. However, what's the connection with the popular Natalie, who seems to have a secret to hide? And of course the question of just who is the killer wearing the winter coat their mother got them for last Christmas, but didn't save the receipt so it could be exchanged for something far more menacing? Could it be Damon (former child porn star Joshua Jackson) who seems to like scaring his fellow students? Possibly Professor Wexler (horrormeister Robert Englund) who teaches a course on Urban Legends and is also the sole survivor of a massacre that occurred at the campus 25 years prior? Then again, it could also be the determined would-be newspaper reporter Paul, who seems a little too eager to get his story about the killings heard and knows a little too much about popular local horror stories. Or, perhaps it's any number of these fucking retards... I really don't care.
Not to worry though kids, because the Pendleton campus is under the watchful eye of Reese, the college's sole security guard... Okay, for an entire campus (one that also had a brutal slaughter 25 years ago mind you), they have one fat sassy black woman who idolizes Pam Grier as their ONLY security?! That's total bullshit, because I go to community college and you can't rape a girl or park in a handicapped spot without 4 or 5 rent-a-cops standing there just waiting to slap you with a fucking ticket and abuse their $4.50/hr authority! Yes, the God of Death goes to community college... fuck you. But, despite this crack security force of Pendleton’s, some students still wind up dead. Let's see if there's a link between them shall we? Well, they're all annoying in their own way, they'll all never amount to anything in Hollywood, and they're all friends with this chick named Natalie, who appears to be a teenage Gillian Anderson and she has some very scary eyes that I'd like to pluck from her sockets and swallow down with a handful of thumbtacks and a bottle of NyQuil™. Oh, and Natalie's not too observant either, as we see in one scene. Natalie, returning to her dorm after a hard night of running around and being scared, walks in to find all the lights turned off and hears muffled screams and such coming from her roommate's side of the room. Earlier on, Nat had walked in on her Goth roommate fucking her equally poseur Goth boyfriend, and when Nat turned on the lights, the bitch just screamed at her to turn them back off. So, devising that this was simply another of those situations, Nat leaves the lights off, doesn't really look at that side of the room, then goes to sleep while what's her name gets her wrists slashed. When Nat wakes up, she finds "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light" scrawled in blood on the wall. Now, I can forgive Nat for her ignorance and her somewhat good intentions, but I can NOT forgive our foolish masked villain. After killing the Goth, he leaves the sleeping Natalie untouched... Anyone who would give up a free meal like that, raise your hands. Okay, now those with your hands not raised, put those hands to good use and strike those with their hands raised in the face... HARDER! Well, leaving Nat untouched makes it definite now: she will be the killer's downfall.
Who is the Ulcer though? It's Roy the Ambulance driver! Just kidding... a little bit o' F13 humor there... let's see you do better. Anyway, it turns out the killer is Nat's pal Brenda. Yep, after pulling the old "she fell behind and got lost in the woods" routine, Brenda pops up to attack Nat. Turns out that in Nat's sordid past she and a friend accidentally ran a guy off the road while they acted out an urban legend. The guy died and, yep, Nat was his fiancé. So, living by the old saying "all is fair in love and slasher flicks", Brenda decided to kill Nat and all her friends as payback, hoping to pin it all on Professor Wexlar with the obvious horror movie premise that he went mad on the anniversary of the bloody slaughter that occurred in his dorm hall those 25 years ago. However, Brenda's plan obviously depends on the idea that the county coroners are all morons who get their jobs courtesy of blackmail and nepotism, since Wexlar's already been dead a while by this time and any normal coroner would realize that the Prof's been dead longer than several of the victims! Unless Brenda had some angle where the Prof comes back from the dead to exact his gory revenge, she is an 'A' class twit. Then again, if she DID have a plan like that, she's a twit anyway. But, thanx to her new boyfriend Paul, and the timely intervention by Reese and her .45, Nat lives and Brenda is left to float downstream, never to be heard from again except in the urban legend that results from the story... and that cameo she does at the very end where she prepares to tell said story to some college students.
Same old Scream clone, following the school of "person you'd least expect" twist endings that no one cares about anymore. Pretty pathetic acting from everyone of these 30-year-olds-trying-to-be-20-year-olds hack actors who will probably never get anything after this. If you're looking for just another cookie cutter kill flick, here it is. However, to keep your dulling brain sharp, here's a game you and your friends can play at home! Throughout the flick, count the number of "4:20" paraphernalia, making sure not to dismiss lampshades and the like. Just how many are there? Check for the answer at the bottom of this screen*! On a final note to finish this garbage up, this movie does have one thing that the other teenybopper slasher crappers don't: a dog blown up in a microwave! Someone call PETA! I'm not an animal rights activist; I just want to get the bastards behind this movie in trouble…
The Moral of the Story: Always keep up-to-date on your urban legends, cuz stupid trivia is guaranteed to save your life one day... or just give you a reason not to watch movies.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Typical stupid '90s slasher movie. Make fun of the stupid pretty people who think they can act, sob for the depths to which Robert Englund has sunk and laugh and point in giddy stupidity when the dog in the microwave explodes. You could definitely do worse in terms of the "scary movie" bullshit of the '90s. Don't believe me? One word:
Valentine.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Scream or
April Fools Day
FEEDBACK
*look at this in a mirror to get the answer for the 4:20 Game!
A: !parc taht no emit ym etsaw t'nod I !wonk I dluohs woH
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