Urban Legend is pretty much like Scream, but a lot less meta and a bit more atmosphere, unfolding as you'd expect it to, with a group of college kids getting killed in bizarre circumstances that all relate to half whispered local myths. One of their professors is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, and who better to lay down the tongue in cheek groundwork than such a familiar face and expressive, dynamic presence like him. Looking back on this it's fairly shocking how terrific of a cast it has and how it's been mostly forgotten in the annals of slasher archives. Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid, Natasha Gregson Warner and Danielle Harris headline as the varied campus rats, with Harris a standout as the obnoxious bitchy goth stereotype, far from her timid Jamie Lloyd in the Halloween films. There's a prologue cameo from horror vet Brad Dourif as well as appearances from Loretta Devine, Julian Richings, Michael Rosenbaum and a priceless John Neville, getting all the best lines as the college's salty Dean. The kills are all done in high 90's style, the story takes a Scream-esque twisty turn in the third act and as far as atmosphere goes, it pretty much outdoes the ol' ghostface franchise. Spooky good time.

I started my journey as a horror fan in the late '90s, during the post-Scream slasher revival, so I have a nostalgic affection for these films. I've been revisiting a few of them this October to get into the proper Halloween spirit, and I must admit that they don't hold up all that well, though I'm not entirely surprised by that.Urban Legend has as its center gimmick the conceit that a killer stalking a college campus is utilizing urban legends (hence the title) to dispatch of clueless coeds. This leads to a few fun set pieces that function as sort of a Rogues' Gallery of so many of the myths you remember reading about on Snopes. Unfortunately, the urban legend that most frightened me as a child--the one about the girl cowering in her dorm room as someone scratches aggressively at her door, only to discover in the morning that it was her mortally wounded roommate attempting to secure help after being attacked by an escaped maniac--is nowhere to be found.The writing is pretty clunky. All the characters are archetypes (the Frat Boy, the Prankster, the Supportive but Nondescript Best Friend, and, of course, the Virginal Heroine) and they constantly spew Kevin-Williamson-esque "hip" dialogue replete with pop culture references and colorful epithets. Everybody spends a good deal of time gaslighting the Virginal Heroine for absolutely no reason and very little makes sense. The direction, by the same token, is competent but never steers away from the ridiculousness of the premise (the killer's schemes to reenact the urban legends are awfully contingent on coincidence and luck). There's no shortage of unintentionally hilarious moments.At the same time, it's never boring, nor does it ever become too insulting to your intelligence (which is to say, it is insulting to your intelligence, but just insulting enough, I suppose). And the cast is good, doing what they can with the flat material they're given. Look for fun cameos by horror veterans Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, Brad "Chucky" Dourif, and Danielle Harris of Halloween 4 fame as the raging Goth queen, whom we know we are meant to condemn in our hearts because she is so crazy she has to take--gasp!--Lithium.

It was an awesome horror-mystery film and Rebecca Gayheart played an excellent role of being the killer. The death scenes were incredibly brilliant. At a gas station, Michelle Mancini (Natasha Gregson Wagner) fights off an apparent attack by a stuttering attendant (Brad Dourif). However, he was actually trying to warn her of an attacker in the back seat, and as Michelle drives off, the attacker in the back seat decapitates her with an axe. On a college campus, student Parker Riley (Michael Rosenbaum) relates how one of the campus halls, Stanley Hall, had been the site of a massacre in 1973. The story is discredited by school journalist Paul Gardner (Jared Leto).As Natalie Simon (Alicia Witt) is shaken by Michelle's death, Damon Brooks (Joshua Jackson) offers to talk and the two drive into the woods. Damon is attacked by the killer, who hangs him from a tree with the rope attached to the car. As the killer approaches Natalie, she attempts to run him over, strangling Damon to death in the process. As the killer recovers, Natalie tries to drive away but Damon's body lands on top of the car, forcing Natalie to flee and alerts security guard Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine) who doesn't believe her when they find the car and Damon's corpse missing.Realizing Damon and Michelle's murders resemble urban legends, Natalie goes to the library where to read up on urban legends. She runs into Sasha who tries to assure her that the murders are unrelated. While she is away, her goth roommate Tosh (Danielle Harris), is strangled to death by the killer. Thinking her roommate is merely engaging in sexual activity, Natalie doesn't turn on the lights and goes to bed. In the morning, a shocked Natalie discovers her corpse and the words, "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" scrawled on the wall in blood.After trying to save Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) from a supposed attack in the swimming pool, Natalie reveals her past. One night Natalie and Michelle re-enacted an urban legend; they were driving with their headlights turned off and pursued the first driver who flashed them, causing him to run off the road and die in the crash.Next, the school dean Adams (John Neville) is attacked in the garage and run over by his car forcing the emergency spikes into his back. Later, Reese finds Professor Wexler's (Robert Englund) office trashed and smeared in blood. Meanwhile, Paul has discovered the Stanley Hall massacre actually occurred and Wexler was the sole survivor.At the party, Sasha gets annoyed at Parker for embarrassing Paul and leaves to go to the radio station. Parker gets a phone call from the killer telling him that his dog is in the microwave. After opening the microwave and seeing his dead dog, he then runs to the bathroom to vomit, where the killer ties him to the toilet and forces him to chug pop rocks and bathroom chemicals (instead of soda), killing him. At the radio station, Sasha (Tara Reid) is on air. In the background, her employee is being strangled to death. Sasha screams and runs out of the room; she is still on air and everyone can hear her cries for help. Natalie runs to her aid only to see the killer hacking her to pieces with an axe.Fleeing from the station, Natalie finds Brenda and Paul and they drive off to find help. Paul convinces the girls that the killer is Wexler. When Paul stops at a gas station, Natalie and Brenda discover Wexler's dead body in the car and bolt, thinking Paul to be the killer. Natalie loses Brenda but makes her way to a road, where the school's janitor (Julian Richings) picks her up. When the janitor flashes a car with its lights out, it swerves around and pursues them. The janitor's car is forced off the road but Natalie survives and makes her way towards Stanley Hall. She hears Brenda screaming from inside. When Natalie breaks into the hall, she discovers Brenda lying on a bed. As Natalie starts crying, Brenda sits up and knocks her unconscious.Waking up, Natalie finds herself tied to a bed and gagged. The killer comes in and unmasks herself as Brenda, who plays mind games with Natalie and taunts her about Natalie's attempt to save Brenda. She reveals that the young man Natalie and Michelle killed was Brenda's boyfriend, David Evans, and she is now exacting her revenge. She begins to cut Natalie's stomach in the fashion of the "Kidney Heist" legend, when Reese rushes in and forces Brenda to get away from Natalie. Reese frees one of Natalie's hands, however, Brenda tries to stab her with a pocket knife and the two struggle for Reese's gun. Brenda is able to shoot Reese and stops Natalie, who is able to untie the ropes on her hands and ankles all by herself, from escaping. Paul then appears and tries to trick Brenda into thinking that he would help her frame Wexler for the murders, but she doesn't buy it. As Brenda is deciding whether to shoot Paul or Natalie, the wounded Reese reaches up and shoots Brenda in the elbow with another gun. Natalie grabs the gun and shoots Brenda, who falls through a window.Natalie and Paul drive off to get help. Suddenly, Brenda appears in the backseat and attacks them with the axe. Paul crashes on a bridge, sending Brenda through the windshield and into the river below. The film's events are then revealed to have been told as an urban legend among a different group of students at a different university, who say that Brenda's body was never found. Most of them disbelieve the tale with the exception of one young woman, who is revealed to be Brenda. She claims that the story is incorrect and begins to tell them how it really goes.

Just another of the glut of teen slashers following in the wake of SCREAM, this one is much more entertaining than I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. For a start, the acting is better, and plus there is a higher gore content. URBAN LEGEND, while obeying all of the most copied clichés in the genre (particularly the jump scene when someone is bumped into, this happens five or six times in the film), still manages to be quite entertaining, in a funny-bad way.For a start, the cast is better than usual. While the main cast members are the fresh-faced, flawless beauties that we've all come to know and hate, even they aren't too bad. Alicia Witt is boring in the title role, while Jared Leto just needs to look pretty and run around a bit. The best actor of the bunch is Joshua Jackson, who is likable as the class joker, although unfortunately he isn't in the film for very long. John Neville fills the shoes of the headmaster well enough, while Robert Englund enjoys his small role as a suspicious college lecturer. Brad Dourif also has a small, scene-stealing cameo appearance as a stuttering garage attendant.The film benefits from a clever, tricky opening murder with a twist that I didn't see coming. After this excellent scene though, it just goes downhill, as to be expected. Bland college life is punctuated by some brutal murders, most of which are mildly clever and diverting, although horrendously contrived. The blood flows quite freely in these scenes, although they aren't really all that gory, apart from an excellent moment when John Neville is run over by a car and crushed into a row of spikes. This is the best murder of them all.The identity of the murderer is kept secret right up until the end, so it's quite fun playing guess the killer. However the fact that the killer wears a giant parka and carries an axe is very clichéd and the ending of the film is just plain stupid, with the killer coming back time after time after time for one last chill. These drawn out endings are really grating after a while, and you just want the film to end, not go on longer. While URBAN LEGEND isn't brilliant by a long way, it's a lot better than I thought it would be (due to all the negative comments heard on release). If you're a slasher fan then its an above average example of the genre, if not, it's a good film to watch with friends and to play guess the killer with. I did, and I had a lot of fun.