THE AISLE SEAT - "URBAN LEGEND"
by Mike McGranaghan
Urban legends are bits of modern-day folklore. Everyone will tell you these stories are true (they usually happened to a friend of a friend or something like that) but there's no truth to them whatsoever. I've always been fascinated by them. I kept hearing this one a few years ago: a woman was pulling into a good space in a crowded parking lot. Out of nowhere, a young punk in a hot rod cut her off, stealing the space. "You've got to be fast to do that!" he told her. The woman then hit the gas and smashed her car into his. She leaned out the window and said, "You've got to be rich to do that!"
This is one of the less violent urban legends to go around, which means you won't find it anywhere in the new horror film Urban Legend. This is the latest entry in the "teen slasher" genre, which has been reinvigorated by movies like the Scream pictures, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Halloween: H20. It takes place on a fictional college campus where - legend has it - a group of students were viciously murdered 25 years prior. Now someone is going around killing students again, using various urban legends as a blueprint.
The first person to figure out what's going on is Natalie (Alicia Witt). At first she believes the murders are either coincidental or the work of practical joker Damon (Joshua Jackson of TV's "Dawson's Creek"). A reporter for the college paper, Paul (Jared Leto), is investigating the murders, and he seems intent on pushing the buttons of the dean (John Neville). Paul thinks the original massacre was more than legend, but the school officially denies it ever took place. The only one who might know for sure is Professor Wexler (Robert Englund), who, perhaps not so coincidentally, teaches a course in urban legends. Does he know something about the current murders too? Paul and Natalie team up to find out.
Urban Legend is the kind of movie that starts off very clever, then gets less clever the longer it goes on. The way it uses folklore is often amusing. There's a very funny bit about the old myth that your stomach will explode if you eat Pop Rocks and drink Pepsi at the same time. The film also uses that story about gang members who drive around with their headlights off, then follow and kill the first person to flash their own lights in warning. We've all heard the stories used here, so it's kind of fun to see them integrated into a horror plot. I also was intrigued by the mystery of the two-decades-prior massacre. The plot did manage to keep me guessing with this one.
By the end, though, Urban Legend deteriorates into a routine slasher pic. It's not hard to guess who the killer is because - by this time - almost everyone else is dead. The unmasking of the killer is done in typically overwrought style, with all sorts of corny cliches including the one in which the supposedly-dead killer comes back for one last grab. The movie also develops a sudden sadistic streak with two of its final legends, resulting in some unsettling violence (I could have lived without seeing a re-enactment of the legend about the woman who puts her wet dog in the microwave to dry). Of course, any movie like this is going to have a certain amount of gore; it's part of the formula. The early violence is handled more discreetly, with an emphasis on the myths behind the violence rather than on the violence itself. The scene of someone being sliced into with a scalpel is too brutal to be ghost-story fun.
I can't really say that this movie is scary, but it does have its pleasures. As I said, the use of legends as a horror device is (at least initially) clever. If you've ever looked in the back seat of your car to see if a killer was hiding there, you'll appreciate the way the movie pokes fun at such ideas. Additionally, there are some witty in-jokes at the expense of Jackson and co-star Rebecca Gayheart (also known as the "Noxzema girl") that made me laugh. And I liked the performances from the fresh young cast and especially from Loretta Devine (who was go good in Waiting to Exhale) as a campus security guard who idolizes Pam Grier.
Urban Legend falls into that nebulous area between definitely liking a movie and definitely disliking it. It's a movie that I almost liked. Sometimes you get a moderate level of enjoyment from a picture that you know doesn't quite work. You are drawn to it by curiosity and - despite its crippling flaws - you recognize an undeniable mindless pleasure. Although I think Urban Legend could have been improved upon, I was certainly amused and diverted by it. In fact, I'm glad I saw this film. But would I recommend it? Eh.
(
1/2 out of four)
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