Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
I really wish I knew more about music. There must be a name for the kind of loud, sudden chord that slasher movies depend on. You know the effect. The foreground is filled with the heroine, carefully framed so that we can see nothing behind her. She turns around, there's a shock cut to a big closeup of another face, and on the soundtrack we get the thwaaaaank! of the chord. Then we realize--hey, it's only Natalie! Or Brenda! Or Michelle! ``Sorry--didn't mean to scare you,'' Natalie/Brenda/Michelle says, while the heroine grins foolishly and both parties laugh with relief. I've got a tip for Natalie/Brenda/Michelle. When the campus is in the grip of a mad slasher, the dead outnumber the living in the dorms, and security guards start sliding through pools of blood--it is seriously uncool to sneak up silently behind someone and grab them by the shoulder. If they're packing, you're dead meat.
``Urban Legend'' makes heavy use of what we may as well name the Creep Chord. It's the movie's punctuation mark. There's a moment of relief, and then the buildup, and then thwaaaank! Just to keep things interesting, about every third time it's not Natalie/Brenda, etc., but a slasher with an ax.
The slasher prowls the campus wearing one of those L.L. Bean subzero Arctic parkas where the fur lining on the hood sticks out so far that you can't see the face inside. If I were dean of students, I'd ban all forms of head covering for the duration of the emergency. Of course, the dean of students may be the killer; this movie doesn't waste a single character, every single person in it is possibly the slasher.
Still, you have to wonder why a person in a conspicuous parka isn't noticed creeping around the campus and even into heated swimming pool area (sorry--that one's a false alarm; the person in the parka is an innocent who just happens to like to wear a subzero parka in hot and humid environments). I am reminded of ``I Know What You Did Last Summer'' (1997), in which the slasher dressed at all times in a slicker and a rubber rain hat, like the Gorton's Fisherman, and yet was never noticed in a coastal resort town in summer when it was not raining.
``Urban Legend'' is in the ``Scream'' tradition, which means that its characters are allowed to be aware of the traditions of their genre. In this case, the killings are deliberately planned to re-enact famous urban legends. I will reveal only the opening example, in which a woman grows frightened when the alarming goon who runs the gas pumps tries to lure her inside the station. She beans him, breaks a window and escapes back to her car--too late for him to warn her there's an ax murderer hiding in the back seat.
My favorite Urban Legend, the Phantom Doberman, is overlooked by the movie, but it hits a lot of the other bases, including the baby-sitter who traces a threatening call and discovers it's coming from ... upstairs. These kinds of movies used to star the dregs of the B-movie stables but the casts look a lot better these days; up-and-coming stars are assembled and knocked off one by one. The real killer is the one person you would never, ever, not in a million years, even remotely suspect, unless your I.Q. is above 60.
The film is competently made, and the attractive cast emotes and screams energetically, and does a good job of unwisely grabbing one another by the shoulders. The gore is within reasonable bounds, as slasher movies go; oddly enough, today's truly violent movies are the comedies. The stars include Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Rebecca Gayheart and Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund, who is to slasher movies as the Quaker is to oatmeal.
``Urban Legend'' is not art. But for its teenage audience, it serves the same purpose, which is to speed the meeting of like minds. Everybody knows how it works: The guy puts his arm casually around his date's shoulders. Onscreen, Natalie/Brenda, etc., goes poking around in the abandoned campus building where the massacre took place years ago. The Creep Chord blasts out of the Dolby speakers, everyone jumps, and if in the confusion his hand slips south, well, who says cable will ever replace the theatrical experience?
David Nusair, Reel Film
Urban Legend is the latest film in the newly created genre, the "teen horror/suspense movie," following Scream, Disturbing Behaviour, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I don't think the word "horror" should even be used to describe these films, though. To call them horror movies would imply that they are scary. They most decidedly are not. The contain elements that make the viewer "jump", yes, but they do not contain any images that linger with the viewer for days afterwards, as a truly scary movie will do.
The setup for Urban Legend is a rather intriguing one. Some lunatic is offing students at an American university in the style of famous urban legends. These are stories we've all heard, but have likely never actually happened to a real person. A premise like that would appear to be foolproof, but the director, Jamie Blanks, has disproven that theory. He creates absolutely no sense of atmosphere, and nothing in this movie gave me chills. Sure it's competently directed, but imagine what a director like David Fincher could have done with a script like this.
As for the performances, there's nothing too special here. Jared Leto has the presence of a dead chicken. Joshua Jackson steals all the scenes he is in, but he vacates the picture after the first 20 minutes. Alicia Witt never convinced me she was actually scared, even when she was being chased by a psycho with an axe. And finally, Robert Englund, "Freddy" himself, has a small part as a professor that teaches a class on (what a surprise!) urban legends. He's good, but is not given much to do.
I will say this for the movie, though. When the killer was finally revealed, it was someone I had not even considered as a suspect. That's not entirely true, however. During the 100 minute running time of the film, anyone who is more than an extra is made to be a suspect. I guess I did like that aspect of the movie; the fact that I was constantly guessing.
Urban Legend isn't all bad, really. It's just not scary, and that offends me since it's being marketed as a horror film. But it is entertaining all the way through, and it kept me guessing, so I'll recommend it if a better movie is sold out.
E! Online
While Urban Legend could easily be dubbed "I Know What You Screamed Last Halloween," the gimmicky premise keeps this tension-filled scarefest afloat. College gal Natalie (Witt) finds her friends "dropping out" one by one, killed in the fashion of urban folklore. You remember the story about the girl who didn't check the backseat of her car--where an ax-wielding killer sat waiting, etc. Soon enough, Natalie doesn't know who to trust. Could the killer be pranking fratboy Jackson, ambitious reporter Leto or...? Although the performances aren't on par with Scream, the numerous in-jokes (the Dawson's Creek theme blares when Jackson turns on the radio, former Freddie Krueger, Robert Englund, appears as a professor) will keep audiences amused.
Janet Maslin, New York Times
You know you're in trouble when you get to college to find that your folklore professor is Freddy Krueger, the dean is the Well-Manicured Man from "The X-Files,"and it's the 25th anniversary of a dormitory massacre.
"Urban Legend" is a teen-age moviegoer's dream. It has familiar young television stars, familiar older stars with cult followings (Robert Englund as the aforementioned professor, John Neville as the dean), an edgy sense of humor, a tricky plot and characters too genre-savvy for their own good. Maybe there will be an oversaturation of "Scream"-inspired horror films someday soon, but this one feels fresh.
Someone at Pendleton University, the fictional safest college in the United States, is committing murders in the style of contemporary urban folk tales. There's an ax murderer lurking in the back seat of a car, a boy hanged in the secluded spot where he and a girl were parked, a killer on the telephone calling from within the victim's house, even a pet in a microwave.
Alicia Witt (Zoey, the smart-mouthed daughter on CBS's "Cybill") is Natalie, whose biggest problem at the beginning of the film is her creepy Goth roommate's active sex life.
Rebecca Gayheart, of "Scream 2," is Natalie's best friend, Brenda. Jared Leto (Claire Danes' dream guy on ABC's "My So-Called Life") is Paul, the blue-eyed student reporter whom both girls are attracted to. Joshua Jackson (Pacey of the WB's "Dawson's Creek") is everybody's pal Damon.
If you crack up when Damon's car radio suddenly blares the first five notes of the song that begins "I don't want to wait," you're in home territory.
Natasha Gregson Wagner is Michelle, the unfortunate first victim, but older moviegoers won't need to be told that; they'd know Natalie Wood's daughter anywhere. Loretta Devine, from "Waiting to Exhale," plays the only admirable adult, a campus security officer who likes to practice her pistol-firing stance while watching Pam Grier movies.
Audiences may guess the identity of the killer, although clues point in several different directions toward the end of the film, but the original motive is skillfully hidden until the last minute.
Appropriately, the final encounters take place on a dark and stormy night (although the rain stops mysteriously just long enough for Natalie and Brenda to run, terrified, through the woods for a few minutes). One clue to keep in mind: in the chilly Northeast, lots of people own parkas with fur-lined hoods.
main