Purely Joyful Movie!

I'll tell you why so serious

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Urban Legend is a movie that knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be. It's full of clichés and false jump scares, but they're pulled off by people who love clichés and jump scares. People tried so hard to compare this to Scream when it was released, but this proudly stands beside the very same type of movie that Scream was lampooning. Now that it's been nearly 20 years since its release it's easier to separate it from Scream and judge it as a straightforward slasher. Everything you love about 80s slashers is here, but with greater production values, and a greater reverence for the slasher movie rulebook.It's the type of movie that telegraphs every kill so obviously that you're not dreading who might get offed next, but rather eagerly anticipating the method of their death. It's the type of movie that casts Tara Reid as the busty blonde and then shoots close-ups of her cleavage when she runs. It's the type of movie that casts horror vets like Brad Dourif and Robert Englund as red herrings. It's the type of movie that features the killer's motive explained through slide show projector. Let's just say that it knows the slasher rulebook, and then excitedly checks off the list.One thing that might detract this movie's value for 80s slasher fans is the lack of nudity and gore. The 90s slashers filled their casts with genuine teen stars rather than unknowns looking for a big break and therefore they were less willing to risk scandalizing their audience. It's a shame because it's the one aspect of this movie that feels tame and dated, but other than that, it's a fun ride and a blast to watch with some friends.

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.

20 years of slasher movies have more or less deluded my interest in a movie like 'Urban Legend'. How many times can you repeat the same old scenes over and over and over again? There are many overdone horror movie standards but the one that irritates me the most is the one where the girl walks into a dark room and doesn't turn on the light, says 'hello?' at least twice before being tapped on the shoulder and whips around to a stinger on the soundtrack to discover that it's Kimberly or Natalie or Greg or Brian or Kimmy or Blake or Jessica or Shawn or Danny or Jenny or Sandra or Paul or Brenda or Marty or Brandy or Buffy or Heather or Michele or Kippy - but never the killer at least not the first time.My mind has become so adhered to these formulas that I am weary from it. The formula is so familiar that it's like hearing James Brown's 'I Feel Good' where not only have you heard it so many times that you know the words but you know the pauses and tweaks in the music by heart as well.The movie takes place on a college campus where no one ever studies, no one goes to class and everyone looks like soap opera stars on hiatus. There is a mad killer on the loose wearing a parka even where it's too hot to wear a parka. The kids are killed off according to old urban legends (that's the films gimmick) and all die off one by one in the order of how famous they are in real like a.k.a. if you aren't famous your death will come early in the film.I am going to diverge here for a moment if you will indulge me . ..I have a lot of time to think during a movie like 'Urban Legend' and here is the thought that I had. I know this cast from their previous work and most of them have done some very good work. I have a mental picture of them standing as a group on a studio lot between two sound stages. On one sound stage they could film 'Urban Legend'.On the other they could film this movie: A group of kids go to college and have the normal problems that most young people have like deciding on a major, cramming for exams, dealing with pressure to get work in on time and trying to please their demanding professors. We could also get to meet them as individuals and see how they react to one another with personality clashes, romantic entanglements, sexual pressures etc. We could get to know them and follow them through one year of college . . . Oh wait, that doesn't sell does it?

****SPOILERS*** Blood soaked slasher flick with the unseen killer offing almost the entire student body of a New England collage that by the time the movie's finally over there isn't enough people left to form a burial detail. The reason for all this carnage were told, by the killer, was the result of a car accident some two years ago that both Natalie & Michelle, Alica Witt & Natasha Gregson Wagner, were involved in. It's in fact Michelle who was the first of many victims of the killers rampage.Using the cover of collage reporter Paul Gardner's, Jered Leto, story about urban legends the killer murders his victims in urban legend style. The movie goes way over the top in it's killings and body count that takes away any suspense it had to offer its audience since he seems to be everywhere and everyplace at the same time making him and his exploits, or murders, totally unbelievable even for a Hollywood slasher movie.. Even the end of the film when the killer is finally , to one one's surprise, reviled and killed is so predictable that it's so called surprise ending doesn't really surprise anyone. Since it comes across as a campfire story about some wild and scary buggy man not the so-called supposedly true story as it was meant to be taken as.One thing about the collage where the movie took place it was to be the safest school in the country. With all the killing slashing and murdering that took place in it Attica State prison or Gitmo would be a much safer place to farther one's collage education as well as life expectancy then it would be for those attending it.