Urban Legend (1998) Dir: Jamie Blanks
- Ridley Coote
- May 23
- 2 min read
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I enjoy a horror film every now and then, and, on this occasion, it was this Jamie Blanks directed slasher from 1998. Even though I do watch my fair share of horror films, I don't often watch a lot of those belonging to the slasher genre. Reviews are, generally, very middling for this one, but I figured it could still be a fun, if a little goofy horror film.
Unfortunately, I could tell pretty much immediately that this was a 'Scream' rip-off. It basically copied and pasted the format, and introduced an uncreative twist, in an attempt to make the film a little more unique. The film was repetitive and tropy, but instead of feeling like it was satirical, like in 'Scream', it just felt like a film falling into the tropes that 'Scream' was mocking.
The story was incredibly boring, and clumped together a group of forgettable personality vacuums as characters, and made them victim to an equally forgettable and very uninspired killer. Worst of all, the whole thing was incredibly predictable. I worked out the killer pretty much immediately, and found both the kills themselves, and their clumsy motifs, very mediocre and uncreative.
Alicia Witt's showing as the film's plucky protagonist was fine, but lacked the charisma and likability that other 'final girl' type characters have had in some of the other horrors I've seen. Jared Leto and Rebecca Gayheart provide the most noteworthy of the various supporting performances, though I must say that both were rather inconsistent. I wanted to like them both a lot more, but there were some scenes where their characters were, simply put, irritating.
The remainder of the supporting cast gave a series of mediocre performances that I really did not care for. Neither the likes of Michael Rosenbaum, Loretta Devine, or Tara Reid could provide much in the way of quality at all. On a positive note, however, two horror icons in Robert Englund and Brad Dourif made appearances, which did bring a smile or two to my face.
Overall, whilst my aim in watching this film was to have a bit of fun, I found myself more bored than anything else. It wasn't unwatchable, but I certainly don't plan on watching it again. There was nothing unique about it, and nothing overly good about it either. This film's quality ranged from average to bad, and never much more than that.
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