Product Description

A MYSTERIOUS CAMPUS KILLER IS USING WELL-KNOWN URBAN LEGENDS AS A PATTERN FOR MURDER. WITH FILMMAKERS' COMMENTARY AND FEATURETTE.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15419 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1999-02-23
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
An attractive young woman is driving her car on a dark country road and singing along to the radio. She's running out of gas and so she pulls into a gas station (run by a jittery, stuttering Brad Dourif), but then flees what seems to be an attack, only to find the real threat in her backseat: a hooded killer with an ax who takes her head off with a well-aimed swing. You've heard the story before? Not surprising, given that it's one of the more famous urban legends borrowed for Urban Legend, a post-Scream exercise in self-referential horror. The students at an ivy-covered New England college are turning up dead, the victims of a serial killer who murders in the fashion of the "apocryphal" modern myths. It's all for the benefit of good girl with a dark secret Alicia Witt, the sole witness to most of the killings. Doe-eyed Rebecca Gayheart, as her gullible best friend, and Jared Leto, the ambitious campus journalist who tracks down the secret that hangs over the school, lead a cast of pretty young women, hunky guys, and campus characters, notably the suspicious professor Robert Englund, a genre legend in his own right as the star of seven Nightmare on Elm Street films. Take away the cheeky remarks and self-awareness and it's a throwback to the 1970s' rash of teen slasher movies, where sexually active teens are sliced, diced, and otherwise slaughtered in elaborate and ingenious ways. The increasingly preposterous film is no Scream, but the modestly stylish production has its moments. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Your typical slasher horror movie, just a different concept
I had to look at this poster everyday I was at school, for 2+ years, as it was in my registration/art class for some reason. So I probably know the poster better than I do the film!

I love this movie. It starts off with a girl singing along (badly) to Total Eclipse Of The Heart, which is one of my fave songs ever since it was played at my uncle Malcolm's wedding. And it always makes me feel sad. Basically, you've got another slasher movie, cashing in on the success of I Know What You Did Last Summers and Screams, but bringing in a different concept. And that's always cool when they do that, rather than just churn out another slasher flick.

Plus, it has a fantastic cast. Brad Dourif (who's uncredited for some reason) plays a stuttering gas station attendant, much like his role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which was a good ting on the director's part, as he's instantly recognisable because of that. (He also does the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play movies) Also starring is your usual teen movies actors and actresses: Joshua Jackson (with a very bad dye job, and watch out for the bit where he starts the car, and the Dawson's Creek theme blasts out!), Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, Tara Reid and Rebecca Gayheart. Tara Reid is nothing special in this, although there's plenty of cleavage on show for the men in the audience, she basically plays a dumb blonde. Someone who can't be missed is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. He plays up his college professor role to the max, playing one of the main suspects in the killings.

However, there are some severe plotholes in this movie, particularly towards the end. Alicia Witt is stabbed very badly, and looks in pain, but as soon as she gets off the bed, she's fine. No one tends to her wound, and the knife could have hit anything. The cop lives. (Enough said, and she manages to turn up for the sequel) The killer only has a motive for a couple of his/her victims, and from then on it just seems like random killings. The killer is shot (twice), gets thrown through a car windshield, and ends up in a river, yet still manages to live?!

If you ignore all these plotholes and there are probably more, then you'll survive the movie, and probably get the second one!

VERY CLICHED
Almost every horror cliche is present in this movie. Cars not starting, a girl not believing the guy is really getting killed, the dumb authority dismissing the heroine's cry for help as nonsense and many, many more. All teens (actors in their 20s) are booze and sex hounds who do nothing more than party and laugh at serious stuff. How annoying.

Once you find out who the killer is you realise that it would have taken precision planning on the scale of Desert Storm to pull off the murders that happen in the movie, even if some of them are purely by chance and some don't even coincide with Urban Legends which is what the whole movie is based on.

Many characters are given (very) brief roles and (very) small personalities. Then they are killed. Like they are just teenage meat that are killed for our pleasure. I thought Hollywood had stopped making conveyor belt movie like this, but obviously not.

When will film-makers realise that horror films should be surreal, elaborate, scary, daring and manipulative? Never apparently.

The only reason for watching this movie is Chris Young's pounding musical score. Once again he has creating a soundtrack that is simultaneously action packed and creepy.

The DVD is in Dolby 5.1 and is beautifully anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1.

Critics bash Urban Legend solely on its genre - I liked it!
I'll say one thing before I start this review - the critics for magazines, websites and whatever else are pretty unfair on this movie. They really don't give many acceptable reasons as to why they dislike the movie. I think people like Roger Ebert and stuff look at the film and say - "Ohh look! It's another teen slasher! Let's give it ¼ soley on the basis of its genre!" Well, I have to disagree and rate Urban Legend on a fair scale and be truthful to my own opinion of the film - I liked it. The whole premise was very original, and although some scenes mildly copied from Scream, the whole idea was new and scary and had a good thing going for it. The script carried itself well and the suspense could've been built better but I felt tense at times in the movie. The performances weren't exactly brilliant, Alicia Witt and Jared Leto were good, and I liked the darkness of the girl who played Witt's sister. I also enjoyed who the killer turned out to be, that was a pretty clever turn! I didn't really like the motive but the actor played the part of the psycho excellently and I enjoyed the way the mystery was solved. The atmosphere of the movie was pretty plausible and I'll repeat I really, really loved the premise of the film. It was a very good, original turn in teen slasher filmmaking. Overall, I thought Urban Legend was an underrated film, and one that I find to be very enjoyable and even at times quite a valuable horror flick. Don't expect too much and I'm sure you'll like it!

Rating: 4/5. Really enjoyed the making-of featurette and the commentary by the director. The trailer was also pretty interesting, but I felt there was something missing from this DVD.