Urban Legend

Urban Legend provides great value as it laughs, cries and scares it way through its running time. A really enjoyable addition to the 'horror smart' teen genre such as Scream and I Know What You Did...

The cast is pretty good as well which helps the film enormously.

Adding Robert Englund to the cast was an inspired choice.

Its good fun like its supposed to be :)

Urban Legend (1998) is a movie I rewatched for the first time in a long time on Tubi recently. The storyline follows a college campus where the kids one day at a coffee shop compare random horror urban legends. They try to figure out which story is more realistic than the others. Shockingly the murders they talked about start happening all over campus. This movie is directed by Jamie Blanks (Valentine) and stars Jared Leto (Suicide Squad), Alicia Witt (Dune), Rebecca Gayheart (Jawbreaker), Loretta Devine (Crash), Michael Rosenbaum (Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2), Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Tara Reid (American Pie). The storyline for this is fairly mediocre but still fun to watch unfold. This felt like a step down from other movies from this era like Scream, Final Destination and I Know What You Did Last Summer (I felt the same way about Blanks' Valentine film also). The acting in this is better than it should be and Leto is actually pretty good in this. The kill scenes are solid and worthwhile for horror fans. The twist at the end is a bit predictable but clever in a this era kind of way. Overall this isn't a masterpiece but is a worthwhile addition to the genre. I'd score this a 6-6.5/10 and definitely recommend seeing it.

Back in the day, the best horror films were Hitchcock movies, like "Psycho" and "Frenzy". Even after Hitchcock, "The Exorcist" was frightening, and Brian DePalma made scary stuff like "Dressed to Kill". Now, we've hit the bottom of the barrel.

If a bunch of people being hacked up is scary to you, then this movie (and about 100 other wastes of film) should be right up your alley. The only thing that was remotely scary in this movie was the acting.

And just for the record, any movie that microwaves a poor, helpless dog should be banned. Kill all the people you want in these slasher flicks, you can even hack up cats/birds/hamsters/manatees you want, but leave dogs alone.

Urban Legend is pretty much like Scream, but a lot less meta and a bit more atmosphere, unfolding as you'd expect it to, with a group of college kids getting killed in bizarre circumstances that all relate to half whispered local myths. One of their professors is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, and who better to lay down the tongue in cheek groundwork than such a familiar face and expressive, dynamic presence like him. Looking back on this it's fairly shocking how terrific of a cast it has and how it's been mostly forgotten in the annals of slasher archives. Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid, Natasha Gregson Warner and Danielle Harris headline as the varied campus rats, with Harris a standout as the obnoxious bitchy goth stereotype, far from her timid Jamie Lloyd in the Halloween films. There's a prologue cameo from horror vet Brad Dourif as well as appearances from Loretta Devine, Julian Richings, Michael Rosenbaum and a priceless John Neville, getting all the best lines as the college's salty Dean. The kills are all done in high 90's style, the story takes a Scream-esque twisty turn in the third act and as far as atmosphere goes, it pretty much outdoes the ol' ghostface franchise. Spooky good time.

I definitely feel that this film gave me nothing. Really nothing. It was full of clichés, as I've mentioned, and there wasn't a plot twist (at least to me).

Firstly, the clichés. I felt that I was watching a film, that desperately wanted to be better than "Scream" and to get all of its cult following. The concept, although it was about urban legends, something that I appreciated, it had many vibes from other slasher films, so I think that it lacks of authenticity.

Second, I knew who was going to die, and I could tell easily, during the film, which deaths were "fake", the ones that wanted to shock you a little bit.

Third, the characters. I mean, they managed to make even the characters to act in a cliché way. There was the serious final girl, the one whom they try to mislead you that he or she is the killer, but he's or she's not. The over the top excited person, the idiot prank boy, the blonde bimbo, the goth, and the a*****e! Nothing new, nothing creative.

As I've said, I knew 90% of what was going to be happen, so I haven't felt any thrilling moment. Except one scene.

Let's say the things that I liked about this film. First of all, the concept of the urban legends it was cool, and maybe the only prototypical. I also liked the first scene. It was actually very thrilling and gave me a very good first impression. The person who played the killer was cool and had good acting skills.

To conclude this review, I want to mention that this film is not necessarily bad, but to me it wasn't good either. It was something between "Scream" and "I Know what you did Last Summer". Plus urban legends. As a person that have seen many many similar Films, I have to say that I kind of knew the flow of the plot, so I did not found it thrilling. If you've never seen similar Films, maybe you'll like it. It's a fun film to watch, if you don't have anything to do.