Urban Legends: Final Cut

Amy is in her second year of her film studies course at Alpine University and is still wondering about what her student film should be about. She decides to make a short horror film where a killer offs his victims in the style of urban myths. Despite the fact that a major Hollywood had been done on this subject less than two years before, her teachers give her the go ahead, compare her to Hitchcock and her friends are all enthusiastic. However as she attempts to shoot her various scenes, somebody is really killing people in that style and hiding their bodies; but can Amy stay alive long enough to convince other people that it's really happening? Given that the first film just gave up on its connections to urban myths I suppose I should at least praise this film for having a script that works out how to keep the material at least semi-related to the title/concept. However that is pretty much the only praise I will give to it because it is just a standard slasher movie – they all have a hook (a gimmick or, in the case of "I know What You Did etc", literally a hook), sexy girls, buff boys, red herrings and lots of gore. So if that is all you want then this average film should just about do you. The plot isn't much cop and it is pretty much a case of counting the cast members alive to work out how long is left, but it is passable for this sort of film. Of course it is only OK if you ignore what it could have done. It could have said so much and taken a sly look at violence in movies; for example the bit where they watch a film of a girl getting killed and enjoy it; that could have been a clever question to the audience but it didn't do anything of the sort. Of course what I did like were some clever in-jokes and confused film realities that served to provide another level to distract me from the poor main – this is occasionally subtle but also works when it is blunt (ie Gayheart's cameo).

Some of the stuff is actually quite thrilling and the film has a good atmosphere considering it is just a slasher movie. It does have some good ideas as well and I did thing the Mexican standoff at the end was a nice touch. The cast are par for the course at best. Morrison is a typically bland blonde and didn't do anything special with her lead role – she isn't awful but she is nothing special. The rest of the cast just go through the motions, acting suspicious, scared or sexy as required – the sight of Anderson terrified me but happily he had little time, however it is simply cruel to cast Eva Mendes as a flirtatious lesbian but then only give her a small amount of screen time! Overall this is a standard slasher movie but it works better than the original film because it actually sticks to the concept as well as having some nice self-awareness and film within a film sort of stuff that is distracting from what is really a red-herring laden, twisty plot that could have come from any slasher film. The cast are pretty average but some of it is quite exciting if you get into it and, while it is an average film in a generally poor genre, it is not a bad film.

Urban Legends: Final Cut is a great sequel to Urban Legend. It is not like other horror movies because in the first one, the mask was different, other horror movies have the same masks for all the sequels that they have.

I think that the return of Reese was good because she is able to understand Amy, in what is happening to her, when she realises that something is wrong, because of what happened the last time.

Also, Rebecca Gayheart's return at the end was excellent. I think that was a great surprise. I didn't expect to see Rebecca in the sequel before I knew, she had a cameo appearance. Not all horrors do that either. Even though the killer is different. The killer from the first one is in the second.

Well this movie is great and I hope all of you enjoy it too!

I'm just a sucker for a slasher! No matter how bad they are I usually enjoy them all even "Halloween: Resurrection" was quite entertaining in my book, although not needed one bit! "Urban Legends" was another slasher I enjoyed and although I know it's nothing special, it's certainly no "Scream", "Urban Legends: Final Cut" tries to enter the "Scream" franchise but just simply doesn't have the same balls "Scream" has.

Nevertheless it was entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable! It starts out a little bit like Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" being set on a film set, (also like "Scream 3"). If you have seen "Urban Legends" then you basically have seen "Urban Legends: Final Cut" because it's more of the same stalk and slash, only this time not all the kills are off-screen! (That really annoyed me in the first one!) It follows the same formula on the set of a top film college. Everyones trying to win the "Hitcock prize" by making low-budget crap and a Kirsten Dunst look-a-like (the real one was too expensive) is going to make a film about a killer basing his murders on urban legends (de ja vu!) Only the film comes to life and someone is killing off her crew.

That's the basic plot, it's simple and everyone can follow it. This is the type of film girls would watch after "Twilight" on a sleepover thinking its a really adult, extreme horror film after being mildly scared by "Twilight". That means that for the rest of us, the scares are minimal and the action is just enjoyable instead of heart-stopping! However, what I did like was the way it used humour.

It was really funny in some places and the black security guard was a hoot baby! So you can't say that this film wasn't fun. What was also fantastic was the ending! I thought I was being very clever in sussing out who the killer was but it took me completely by surprise! "Urban Legends: Final Cut" is a wannabee "Scream" for a more miniature audience (i.e. 12+) it tries to be clever and sometimes it is but it is fun throughout and never dull. Just don't expect an out-of-this-world slasher because you simply aren't going to get it. If you're not expecting much then give it a try. I really enjoyed it.

URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS / SDDS

Several film students at an isolated university campus are targeted by a serial killer who patterns his/her crimes after various urban legends.

John Ottman's unnecessary sequel is a disastrous jumble of humor and horror which isn't nearly as funny or frightening as the filmmakers might have hoped, and the visual references to various classic movies (most notably the VERTIGO-inspired climax) seem entirely superfluous. Most of the murders are routine, except for a grisly decapitation inspired by a similar sequence in Dario Argento's INFERNO (1980), but the rest of the movie adheres strictly to formula, as a masked killer strives to frame weak-willed heroine Jennifer Morrison for a series of brutal crimes. Only two of the characters from the original URBAN LEGEND (1998) have been retained: Loretta Devine as the campus security guard whose aspirations toward COFFY-style bravery are finally realized during a climactic confrontation with the killer, when he/she makes the mistake of trying to punch her out (Devine retaliates with the best line of dialogue in the entire movie!), and Rebecca Gayheart in an unbilled cameo which should raise a smile amongst devotees of the original film.

The supporting cast is handsome but interchangeable, including Matthew Davis (TIGERLAND) as Morrison's potential love interest, Jessica Cauffiel (VALENTINE) as a dizzy would-be actress whose final sequence resembles one of the more famous set-pieces from PEEPING TOM (1959), Eva Mendes (ONCE UPON A TIME IN Mexico) as a statuesque lesbian beauty whose fondness for Morrison lands her in a whole heap of trouble, and Hart Bochner (APARTMENT ZERO, SUPERGIRL) as an unlikely college professor. Production values are polished, but the movie amounts to little more than an uninspired rehash, and represents an inauspicious debut for former composer/editor Ottman (THE USUAL SUSPECTS). Also starring Joseph Lawrence, Anson Mount and Marco Hofschneider.

A student filmmaker's thesis project encounters production problems when the actors and crew of her film start getting killed by a monstrous force.

Jennifer Morrison stars as Amy Mayfield, a student at a prestigious film school, unsure about what her thesis film is going to be. But after a conversation with security guard Reese Wilson about her experience with a series of murders that had happened on the campus she had previously worked in, she is inspired to make a film about a serial killer murdering in the fashion of urban legends.

I rewatched this on Blu-ray in the new collector's edition trilogy, although I have seen the film in the past. The film is carried by Morrison's gratifying performance, alongside Loretta Davis bringing comic relief to the film. Where the film succeeds is in its classiness as a horror picture, and director John Ottman has proven that he can successfully cross over from being, not only a gifted composer but also a respectable filmmaker. The film embraces the horror genre wholeheartedly and giving us a nail-biting, heart-jolting experience. Where I found the film fell short is the fact it's very keen on keeping the film (mostly) bloodless and a lot of the deaths happen off-screen or cut away just as it happens, although I think the film would've benefitted from more gore and brutality. Which is not something I would normally say. The end of the film wraps up reminiscent of an episode of "Scooby-Doo" with a nice nod to the original courtesy of Rebecca Gayheart. It's a fun watch.