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Nevertheless, Urban Legend manages somehow to be rather endearing, from Natasha Gregson Wagner's opening bit (what must now, after Scream, be called 'the Drew Barrymore position') to the hokey shaggy-dog punchline. (Intriguingly, almost all the stories classed as urban legends take place on lonely roads or woods miles away from cities.) That film was more sophisticated in its deployment of urban legends and was actually urban in setting. Some key legends mentioned in the film ('dead granny on the roofrack', for example) are left out, and only a token stab is made at the 'call her name five times' tale, to avoid invoking memories of Candyman. Despite references to the 'dog in the microwave' and the 'snack food and soda intestinal explosion' stories, the string of murders that clutters up the second half of the film are just stereotypical stalk-and-hack killings. The monomaniacal thesis, elaborated both by Robert Englund's blatant red-herring professor and wiseacre Parker, also stumbles because there aren't enough urban legends to go round. For instance, how does this killer get the first victim to make a late-night visit to an out-of-the-way gas station? How can he be sure the stuttering attendant will be unable to warn anyone? How can he swing an axe with killing force inside a small car? And how come the entire plot is directed at the less culpable Natalie rather than Michelle, initiator of the original incident? The guessable revelation of who the guilty party under the hooded parka is glosses the details. This yields a silly but not unlikable formula horror picture, one exactly like the wave of early 80s movies that were name-checked in Scream 2 ( The Dorm that Dripped Blood, The House on Sorority Row, Graduation Day, Final Exam).
#URBAN LEGEND 1998 SERIAL#
Urban Legend calculatedly cross-breeds the youth-appeal of Wes Craven's Scream (especially the poster design), the novelty serial killer of Se7en, and the persecuted guilty-teens motif of I Know What You Did Last Summer. Later, on another campus, Brenda listens as someone recounts the story of her murder spree as an urban legend. Paul and Natalie fight off Brenda, who falls into a river. Brenda and Natalie find Wexler's body in the trunk of Paul's car and run from him, but it is actually Brenda - the girlfriend of the boy Michelle and Natalie killed - who is the murderer. During a frat party, the killer murders the Dean, Parker and Sasha. Natalie confides in Brenda that she broke her friendship with Michelle after they played a prank based on an urban legend which resulted in a boy's death in a car accident. Natalie's roommate Tosh is murdered, leaving the message "aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights?" in blood, but the Dean writes her death off as suicide. Parker floats the theory that a serial killer is recreating urban legends. When Damon, a prank-playing friend, is murdered in front of Natalie in a re-enactment of an urban legend, she confides in fellow students Brenda, Parker, Sasha and Paul.
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News of her death spreads across campus, especially affecting her estranged friend Natalie who is taking Professor Wexler's course on urban legends. He is trying to warn her about the axe murderer hiding in the back seat of her car. Student Michelle, driving home late, escapes from a stuttering gas-station manager. Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.