The most frustrating movies to sit through aren't the ones that are bad through and through; those you can usually spot early on and leave before wasting too much time on them. The real killers are the films that have just enough clever ideas or funny lines to keep you in your seat, hoping against hope that some kind of knockout ending is going to make your investment of time and money worthwhile. So it goes with "Urban Legend," which tosses in a few exciting moments, a handful of snappy jokes and a potentially solid set-up only to self-destruct in its excruiating last half-hour. Desperate to devise a finale sure to stun, writer Silvio Horta concocts several and runs them back to back. The result drove a sneak preview audience to scream alright, first in gales of disbelieving laughter and then for their money back. "Urban Legend" is constructed around those deathless stories that somehow circulate through every community. Everybody knows about the babysitter who realized too late that the threatening phone calls she was getting were coming from inside the house, or about how washing down Pop Rocks with soda will make your stomach explode, and similar pop mythology. In Horta's script, a serial killer has decided to recreate these tales of terror in and around Pendleton College, recently named "the safest campus in America" by no less than U.S. News and World Report. So, for example, when a young woman fails to check the backseat of her truck before cruising down the road, singing along to Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," the line "every now and then I fall apart" takes on a whole new meaning. This recent burst of coed carnage coincides with the 25th anniversary of Pendleton's fabled "Stanley Hall massacre," in which a knife-wielding maniac went from room to room slaying dorm residents. The only survivor was Professor Wexler (Robert Englund, re-establishing his credentials as an actor with a capital "h") who now teaches a popular class on urban legends. Could he secretly be doing some unauthorized first-hand research into his subject matter? Maybe and maybe not. Red herrings abound in "Urban Legend." They're almost as plentiful as director Jamie Blanks' use of the old turn-around-and-bump-into-something-and-scream cliche, which loses its shock value in this film somewhere around the middle of the second reel. The real horror lies in the performances of such generally reliable types as Jared Leto and Alicia Witt, both of whom spend most of the movie slack-jawed and trying hard to look frightened. They definitely have their work cut out for them by the time Horta drops his final bomb, revealing the maniac behind the murders. It's one thing to ask viewers to suspend their disbelief, Mr. Horta, and quite another to heave all logic out the nearest open window. A few intentional laughs are provided by Joshua Jackson (that makes James van der Beek the only "Dawson's Creek" lead not to have starred in a horror movie this year) and particularly by Loretta Devine as a security officer who spends her spare time worshipping blaxploitation queen Pam Grier. There's also a Noxema commercial joke to hint at the past (and future) career of the utterly talentless ex-model Rebecca Gayheart, whose feeble thesping as Witt's best friend makes one long for the days of talents like Shelley Hack and Maud Adams. James Sanford
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews