Brock Landers
12-20-2000, 06:13 PM
"Urban Legend" A Brock Landers Overview of A Jamie Blanks Film (8/10)
"Urban Legend" is a guilty pleasure of mine. I must have watched it four or five times in theaters, and I am unable to count screenings on DVD. I mean, I usually only watch a horror film once in theaters…even if it's fun to watch yet another date jump out of her seat in horror. In the case of this film, however, I kept on coming back. I think the reason lies within the humor and fun in the film. It is horribly formulaic…but it's still fun…I mean, the one-liners are great…and the absolute ridiculousness of some of the characters is great (for instance…Brad Dourif) not to mention cameos (like Silvio Horta & Robert Englund)…In short, it's great amusement…
Have you ever heard the one about the baby-sitter who gets a phone call from a strange man…but he's hiding behind the couch? Or the one about the girl who gets out of her car to pee and finds out her boyfriend is really hung? (if you catch my drift). Or the one about the guy using the john who hears strange giggling in the stall next to him and ends up getting stabbed in the ear with a penis? …oops…wrong flick…same idea… Anyways, the odds are you have heard some urban legends before, and in most cases they are not true (except I actually knew this chick who got caught naked letting her golden retriever lick peanut butter from you-know-where)…they are just modern myths (except the one about the chick who masturbated in her bathtub with a lobster tail…only to have baby lobsters in her toilet one day after peeing)…They are stories, usually passed around campfires from generation to generation as true. But they're false (except the one about Richard Gere). Some of them are downright hilarious, but some of them are scary. That's the whole premise for the film "Urban Legend"…what if somebody started prowling around a university campus killing people just like in urban legends?
That is, of course, the whole premise of the film. A random murder shocks a small serene college campus…but the terror is just beginning as the first murder leads to another and another, and a sinister pattern begins to appear. The plot is formulaic (once again) at best, with murder after murder continually leaving conflicting clues as to the killer's identity. When the climax comes, the killer's identity is naturally revealed. You should be able to figure it out…in fact, I know most of you already have since this film has such a following. The premise (again) is a very intriguing one…and could have generated a legendary horror film if it had been done better. Unfortunately, what could have been great only ends up being pretty good. First, the script gives too little attention to the urban legends and pays too much attention to the "whodunit" angle…Second, the suspense just isn't played as well as it could have been. Don't get me wrong, "Urban Legends" gets the job done, but sometimes you just see things coming way too early…
Overall, "Urban Legends" is a product of the "Scream"-induced resurgence of lowbrow horror films (which I think is great)…as such, it soars, providing the scares and laughs to make it an enjoyable little film worth watching time and time again. However, this film also had a much more interesting topic/premise than most of your lowbrow horror films, and in that regard, it failed to make the cut…I mean, so much could have been drawn from the notion of an urban legend-copying killer…instead we get cleverness as an afterthought. Oh, and if you buy the DVD (which is solid), don't forget the urban legend about those little "security" tags in the packaging that are used by a secret government agency (think Big Brother) to track you by satellite…just a thought…
"Urban Legend" is a guilty pleasure of mine. I must have watched it four or five times in theaters, and I am unable to count screenings on DVD. I mean, I usually only watch a horror film once in theaters…even if it's fun to watch yet another date jump out of her seat in horror. In the case of this film, however, I kept on coming back. I think the reason lies within the humor and fun in the film. It is horribly formulaic…but it's still fun…I mean, the one-liners are great…and the absolute ridiculousness of some of the characters is great (for instance…Brad Dourif) not to mention cameos (like Silvio Horta & Robert Englund)…In short, it's great amusement…
Have you ever heard the one about the baby-sitter who gets a phone call from a strange man…but he's hiding behind the couch? Or the one about the girl who gets out of her car to pee and finds out her boyfriend is really hung? (if you catch my drift). Or the one about the guy using the john who hears strange giggling in the stall next to him and ends up getting stabbed in the ear with a penis? …oops…wrong flick…same idea… Anyways, the odds are you have heard some urban legends before, and in most cases they are not true (except I actually knew this chick who got caught naked letting her golden retriever lick peanut butter from you-know-where)…they are just modern myths (except the one about the chick who masturbated in her bathtub with a lobster tail…only to have baby lobsters in her toilet one day after peeing)…They are stories, usually passed around campfires from generation to generation as true. But they're false (except the one about Richard Gere). Some of them are downright hilarious, but some of them are scary. That's the whole premise for the film "Urban Legend"…what if somebody started prowling around a university campus killing people just like in urban legends?
That is, of course, the whole premise of the film. A random murder shocks a small serene college campus…but the terror is just beginning as the first murder leads to another and another, and a sinister pattern begins to appear. The plot is formulaic (once again) at best, with murder after murder continually leaving conflicting clues as to the killer's identity. When the climax comes, the killer's identity is naturally revealed. You should be able to figure it out…in fact, I know most of you already have since this film has such a following. The premise (again) is a very intriguing one…and could have generated a legendary horror film if it had been done better. Unfortunately, what could have been great only ends up being pretty good. First, the script gives too little attention to the urban legends and pays too much attention to the "whodunit" angle…Second, the suspense just isn't played as well as it could have been. Don't get me wrong, "Urban Legends" gets the job done, but sometimes you just see things coming way too early…
Overall, "Urban Legends" is a product of the "Scream"-induced resurgence of lowbrow horror films (which I think is great)…as such, it soars, providing the scares and laughs to make it an enjoyable little film worth watching time and time again. However, this film also had a much more interesting topic/premise than most of your lowbrow horror films, and in that regard, it failed to make the cut…I mean, so much could have been drawn from the notion of an urban legend-copying killer…instead we get cleverness as an afterthought. Oh, and if you buy the DVD (which is solid), don't forget the urban legend about those little "security" tags in the packaging that are used by a secret government agency (think Big Brother) to track you by satellite…just a thought…