Urban Legends: Final Cut

Plot synopsis:
A plane is flying through a heavy storm that is filled with rowdy college students coming back from Hawaii after spring break. One couple heads into the lavatory for sex when the girl sees the words "you're going down" written in red on a mirror. The plane starts a descent, and the couple exits the bathroom to find all of the passengers dead and the killer, a flight attendent wielding a knife, attacks them. The couple runs into the cockpit to find both pilots dead. While the boy tries to hold the killer steward off by holding the door closed, the girl gets in the pilot seat and yells "mayday!" over the radio. Suddenly... Toby the director yells "Cut!" as the camera pulls back to reveal that this whole thing is a horror movie filmed by a small college crew at Alpine University. Toby yells at his crew for not getting the shot right as well as the blond girl, Sandra Petruzzi (Jessica Cauffiel), over her motivation.When the work is completed for the day, the sound recorder Amy Mayfied (Jennifer Morrison), walks home to her doom where it's revealed that she is a aspiring filmmaker wanting to write and direct her own movie some day.The next day, Amy is in class with other film students listing to the talk of the Alfred Hitchcock Film Award and the thesis film projects. Walking back to her dorm after her late night class, Amy is given a ride by Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine), the campus security guard. The two of them talk about Pam Grier and that they are both fans of her movies. Amy tells Reese that she has a film due, but cannot think of a good story, Reese tells her that a few years ago she was the security guard at Pendleton University where a serial killer killed eight students there, but Amy dismisses it as the local urban legend of the area. Later, Amy visits her film class teacher, Professor Solomon (Hart Bochner), and gives him her idea about making a film about a killer who kills people basing them on urban legends. The professor thinks that its a great idea.That evening, film student Travis Stark (Matthew Davis) is in a local bar with his girlfriend Lisa and they talk about his films. As Lisa orders two more drinks, someone slips a pill in her drink. Travis leaves to go to work on his latest movie, and Toby (Aston Mount) walks over to Lisa to hit on her. Lisa leaves, telling him that he can pay for the drinks. She stumbles into a coatroom where an unseen person sneaks up behind her and throws a plastic bad over her head. Lisa wakes up sometime later that night in a bathtub full of ice with a wound on her stomach and sees one of her kidney's is on a plate nearby. Lisa sees someone in the other room of what appears to be an abandoned building. She crawls out of the tub and shuts the door. Lisa calls 911 on her cell phone, but the operator thinks that its a prank call and hangs up on her. Lisa tries crawling out a window when the unseen person breaks in and pulls her back in, and breaking the window. The window is slammed shut on Lisa's neck, beheading her.The next day, Amy asks Travis if he can look at her approved script. When Amy tells some fellow students about her movie, Toby pulls her aside and accuses her of stealing his horror genre and says that no one will take the Hitchcock Award away from him which he feels belongs to him and him only. Amy goes to see Travis who is upset that he got a C- on his film and asks if she knows an available cinematographer. On the set, three of the film student crew, Stan Washington (Anthony Anderson), Dirk Reynolds (Michael Bacall), as well as Sandra fake an accident in which Sandra plays dead with some blood makeup on her head. After Amy describes the scene to Sandra, the cinematographer Schorm "Simon" Jabuscko (Marco Hofschneider), shows up with his camera. As people are leaving for the night, Sandra returns to the set for her dorm room keys. Someone sneaks into the studio and attaches a microphone to a camera and approaches her. The next day in the screening room, Amy and her friends watch the latest footage they shot. But the footage changes to feature Sandra being chased and killed by the unseen killer. Amy thinks that it is real, but the others think is another of Sandra's practical jokes.Later that day, Amy and the others get news that Travis killed himself. Another film student, named Graham Manning (Joseph Lawrence), talks to Amy, assuring her that Sandra is probably in Los Angeles filming a bit part on the series ER. Amy goes to the campus tower where it is said that Travis shot himself over his bad grade. There, Amy has a run-in with Travis' identical twin brother, Trevor (also Mathew Davis). He tells Amy that he thinks that Travis did not kill himself, but he tells her not to tell anybody that she saw him.That evening, Amy films a scene where the students count down to the new year and scream. While Simon is outside to smoke a cigarette, the killer, wearing a fencing mask with a hooded dark-blue sweat suit, attacks him with his own camera and beats him to death with it. Amy, having heard the last part of the killer, goes outside where Simon got attacked, but the killer and Simon's body are gone. Amy notices a security camera and she goes to Reese to ask to borrow the tapes of the last hour or so of what the cameras recorded.Amy watches the tape in the studio and sees Simon killed by the hooded fencing mask killer. But the killer appears and breaks into the studio. She locks the door to the booth, but the killer breaks through. Amy is chased by the killer through the building and to the dock where she dives into a sewer piper. While running through the sewer tunnel, Amy finds Reese and the two of them go back to the recording studio, but the tapes are gone. Reese is skeptic to Amy's claims about being attacked and also says that she cannot do anything without evidence.The next morning, Amy secretly meets with Trevor again where she tells him that she thinks that Sandra and Simon are dead, but Trevor tells her that he cannot go to the police for he has a bad relationship with the local authorities for they will not believe him either. Amy thinks that the killer might be one of the students up for the Hitchcock Award.That evening, Amy and colleague Vanessa Valdeon (Eva Mendes), the boom operation on the film (whom clearly has a crush on the straight Amy), head to the ride Merry Minders, the location of the Tunnel of Terror carnival ride scene (where the urban legend has real dead bodies in a carnival fun ride). Stan and Dick arrive there to set up dead bodies, and Amy asks Graham why be brought along the odd PA Kevin (Derek Aasland). Graham is upset that Amy is pulling a power trip in front of everyone, and he leaves. Amy sees Trevor watching them from the trees, nods to him, and tells everyone that they can leave the set to get something to eat. When Stan goes off into the tunnel to fix more lights, the killer hits him on the head and electrocutes him with a sliced cable. Next, the killer attacks Dirk and pushes him against a control box, electrocuting him too. The ride's railcar stops with Amy inside and she walks out the rest of the way. Amy finds Dirk dead and is chased by the killer to the entrance where Reese is waiting. She ventures into the tunnel, but the killer has fled. The police arrive and carry away the dead Stan and Dirk while they take Amy away for questioning.The next day, Trevor meets with Amy in her room where he tells her that he followed Graham but lost him the previous night and cannot rule him out being the killer. They lie down together on Amy's bed where Amy falls asleep and has an intimate dream of her with Trevor when he suddenly stabs her. Amy wakes up in her bed alone.Amy sees a light on in the tower and finds Vanessa who says that she got Amy's note to meet with her there. Amy replies that she didn't send her any note when a dummy falls onto a table and the two girls run up to the tower followed by the killer. They hide in a room when the door is opened and the killer grabs Vanessa, but leaves Amy locked in the room. Amy breaks down the door and finds a dead Vanessa hanging from the tower bell. Amy runs outside where Reese sees her and begins to follow her.Amy finds Trevor who takes her to the library. He tells her that in his own investigation, all the dead people worked on the short film The Gods of Men, his brother's film. They watch the bad film when at the end of it, Amy notices a splice and says that it is not Travis' film. Amy and Trevor waylay Toby Melcher as he is driving to the campus by flaging him down and threaten him with a gun as another urban legend (a guy picking up a dead hitchhiker). They take him to the studio set and handcuff him to a chair and accuse him of being the killer for he is the only surviving crew member who worked on Travis' film.Just then, Professor Solomon arrives where Trevor, acting as Travis, says that Toby stole his film. Toby reminds 'Travis' that Travis only did the sound and merely gave the credit to Toby who has never seen the film. Suddenly, Solomon pulls out a gun and shoots Toby. Trevor goes for the gun and Amy runs. Solomon knocks Trevor aside and holds him at gunpoint. The professor tells Amy that many years ago, her father was one of the judges who cast the deciding vote against him for the Hitchcock Award in film school. Solomon explains what when Amy came into his office on that day with her idea about making a horror movie about an urban legend serial killer, he decided to kill all those who worked on Travis' film and frame her for the killings so he could steal Travis' film and submit it as his own. Graham comes out of hiding and swings a chair at Solomon who ducks and the four of them battle over the gun until Reese arrives and points her gun at all of them unsure who is the killer. Feigning innocence, Solomon reminds Reese that Amy is the killer because he saw her running from the tower a few hours ago when Vanessa was killed. Reese points her gun at the professor saying that she never told anyone that she even saw Amy running from the tower and the only way that Solomon knows is if he was there. Solomon punches Reese and she punches him back. During the struggle, the prop guns get mixed up with the real guns. Amy, Trevor, and Solomon each have a gun. Trevor and Solomon get a click, but nothing happens. Amy, with a gold-trimmed gun that Reese had shown her earlier, tries to pass the gun to Reese. Solomon jumps on her and gets shot in the back. Reese then places him under arrest as Amy and Trevor embrace. Graham also finds Toby whom is still alive as well.Some months later, Trevor is accepting the Alfred Hitchcock Award on behalf of his late brother's film when the creepy PA Kevin, perched high atop a walkway, attempts to shoot Trevor as he is accepting the award and gets shot by Reese. Kevin falls off the scaffolding.... into a large air bag below and Amy yells "Cut!" It is the last scene of Amy's very first independent funded movie titled Urban Legends with her directing, Trevor in the lead role, Toby as the assistant director, and most of the crew in acting parts, while Graham talks on his cell phone nearby as Amy's manager to discuss her film's upcoming completion and future premier.In the final scene set another few months later, a TV set showing Amy's complete film is turned off by a nurse while a dazed and near-cationic Solomon, now confined to a wheelchair from his gunshot wound, is now residing in a insane asylum having watched Amy's completed movie. Solomon is wheeled away back to his room by a familiar looking nurse whom is.... Brenda Bates (Rebecca Gayheart). The wild-eyed killer from the first Urban Legend movie and the inspiration for this whole new film.

Tags: murder

Review: