AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

nightwishouge I started my journey as a horror fan in the late '90s, during the post-Scream slasher revival, so I have a nostalgic affection for these films. I've been revisiting a few of them this October to get into the proper Halloween spirit, and I must admit that they don't hold up all that well, though I'm not entirely surprised by that.Urban Legend has as its center gimmick the conceit that a killer stalking a college campus is utilizing urban legends (hence the title) to dispatch of clueless coeds. This leads to a few fun set pieces that function as sort of a Rogues' Gallery of so many of the myths you remember reading about on Snopes. Unfortunately, the urban legend that most frightened me as a child--the one about the girl cowering in her dorm room as someone scratches aggressively at her door, only to discover in the morning that it was her mortally wounded roommate attempting to secure help after being attacked by an escaped maniac--is nowhere to be found.The writing is pretty clunky. All the characters are archetypes (the Frat Boy, the Prankster, the Supportive but Nondescript Best Friend, and, of course, the Virginal Heroine) and they constantly spew Kevin-Williamson-esque "hip" dialogue replete with pop culture references and colorful epithets. Everybody spends a good deal of time gaslighting the Virginal Heroine for absolutely no reason and very little makes sense. The direction, by the same token, is competent but never steers away from the ridiculousness of the premise (the killer's schemes to reenact the urban legends are awfully contingent on coincidence and luck). There's no shortage of unintentionally hilarious moments.At the same time, it's never boring, nor does it ever become too insulting to your intelligence (which is to say, it is insulting to your intelligence, but just insulting enough, I suppose). And the cast is good, doing what they can with the flat material they're given. Look for fun cameos by horror veterans Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, Brad "Chucky" Dourif, and Danielle Harris of Halloween 4 fame as the raging Goth queen, whom we know we are meant to condemn in our hearts because she is so crazy she has to take--gasp!--Lithium.

Leofwine_draca 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.

Sandcooler "Urban Legend" is a movie that clearly tries to cash in on the slasher revival started by "Scream", but I don't mind that because it's a very well-made horror movie. It looks slick, but some of the false scares genuinely work and the murders based on urban legends are a good addition (even though they bail on that pretty quickly). The whodunit aspect is also entertaining, there are so many red herrings thrown around in this movie. However, the climax is pretty disappointing. When you find out who the killer is in "Scream", you're genuinely surprised: it's a movie that's even more fun to watch the second time, because then you can puzzle it all together. The revelation in "Urban Legend" on the other hand makes no sense whatsoever, and you just feel cheated by the movie. Thankfully you've seen plenty of good kill scenes by then, so it's a mistake that's easy to forgive.

SnoopyStyle This movie opens with Michelle Mancini (Natasha Gregson Wagner) driving in a rainy night and gets killed by an ax killer hiding in her backseat. At Pendleton University in New England, Professor William Wexler (Robert Englund) teaches a class about urban legends. Paul Gardener (Jared Leto) writes about Mancini in the school paper enraging dean Adams (John Neville) and security guard Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine). Mancini and Natalie Simon (Alicia Witt) were high school cheerleader co-captains. Then Damon Brooks (Joshua Jackson) is killed while he's with Natalie but his body goes missing. She suspects the killer is focused on her. Her goth roommate Tosh Guaneri (Danielle Harris) gets killed. She and her friends Brenda Bates (Rebecca Gayheart), Parker Riley (Michael Rosenbaum) and Sasha Thomas (Tara Reid) are stalked by the killer. Also there's a weird janitor (Julian Richings).This is a functional horror although it's nothing terribly original. In fact, the whole movie is about all the horror clichés. It plays it seriously. The cast is full of good young photogenic actors. It's a routine slasher movie and nothing more. Unlike other films, this does lack a sense of humor.