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Too many people have claimed that this movie is a great idea, but pitiful in execution. I wouldn't even go that far--the whole "urban legend" craze of the late 90's never really made much sense to me, especially considering the breadth of tall tales that enter into this category (like e-mail taxes and fathers hooking up with daughters in chat rooms--how dumb do you have to be to swallow this tripe?).
Here, we have college student Natalie (Alicia Witt) with, if I didn't know better, the entire cast of the WB, starring as a bunch of college students who find themselves stalked by an unknown killer modeling his murders after the tried-and-true urban legends of contemporary culture. In the opening scene, you can almost mouth the dialogue in advance while watching the young attractive motorist get gas from a creepy-looking attendant with a stutter, think he's attacking her and race off, only to miss his warning "There's somebody in your back seat!" (I know I'll never insult people with speech defects ever again.) In another scene, two teenagers making out in a car hear a "weird noise" and go out to investigate (in the tried and true stupid nature of dumb white people in horror movies), resulting in the boyfriend being hung by a rope while his feet scrabble on the hood of the car. (I know I'll never listen to footsteps on my car the same way ever again.) In yet another scene we have the killer strangling Witt's roomate while Witt, thinking it's makeout city, obliviously plays her headphones. (I know I'll never play my headphones while anyone's having sex again...well, I guess these "I know I'll" jokes are getting old.)
Spoiler Alert: While not wishing to spoil this movie (watching it will do that for you), I will point out that the revealed killer will have you in hysterics. Picture a really pissed off Sarah Michelle Gellar with a butcher's knife and a voice about to crack, and you'll probably figure out who it is twenty minutes into the movie. I couldn't tell whether Robert Englund's role in the movie was to confuse the viewers about the killer's identity ("Is it the creepy old guy? The creepy janitor? The creepy college kid?") or simply add some weight to the cast, but in any case, whatever motivations they had were shot down before most theatergoers could even figure out who Englund was in the first place.
On an interesting side note: to what lengths are horror writers (and I use the term sarcastically) going to go to come up with new Serial Killer Costumes? The whole ghostface costume for Scream was pretty good, but Urban Legends' Bad Guy is featured in a hauntingly frightening...wool coat. So we can't see the face because of the shadows on it. I can't think of anything less scary than being stalked by a psychotic Eskimo who's spent too much time surfing the Internet, unless it would be Eskimos who can hang a boyfriend off a car in twenty seconds flat. Anyway, skip this one on your trip down the Horror section. Go create a new urban legend instead. Like the legend of horror screen writers with taste and talent.
--Long
Copyright 2002 Tso Long Productions ©