the great actor james woods once said ( and i 'm paraphrasing ) , " if sex is n't messy , then you 're not doing it right " . a truly profound statement , and one that could be made for the entire mad slasher genre ( just replace " sex " with " your mad slasher film " ) .
for those uninformed souls , the mad slasher genre ( or sub - genre ) is a melding of horror and exploitation elements put to the service of a plot that follows an identical outline : a usually masked but always crazed killer stalks and kills attractive teens a la halloween .
urban legend is a mad slasher flick , but one that is so sanitary , bloodless , and nudity free , that with its irony laden dialogue and beautiful ( though not overly talented ) cast , it more closely resembles an overlong wb television special .
for film makers , gore is one of the two weapons they have at their disposal in a stale , fright - free horror movie , as stephen king once said ( again paraphrasing ) " if you ca n't scare your audience , gross em ' out , if you ca n't do that , make em ' laugh " .
alas , urban legend succeeds only at the latter , though not by intention .
i actually find the fact that this film became a minor success ( $ 40 million domestic box office gross ) more frightening than anything in it .
it seems that audiences ' tastes have been whittled down to such a degree that any movie even claiming to be scary is given the benefit of the doubt .
the promotion for urban legend sure promised thrills , but
how can anyone with a three digit iq argue that it provides them .
unfortunately , these kinds of flicks will continue to be produced because people no longer have expectations ; one idiotic super - hyped blockbuster flick after another has desensitized audiences to the point where films do n't need to do anything more than promise a good time without the added pressure of delivering .
if anyone disagrees i would love for them to explain the box office successes of shit like batman and robin , wild wild west , and godzilla .
but forget all that , it goes without saying that mad slasher films ( or any other exploitation off - shoot ) will be made without an ounce of craft ( especially considering the sheer volume that are produced ) .
allow me to present you with the real fault of the mad slasher film :
the lack of enthusiastic exploitation .
these flicks are n't harnessed with any lofty aspirations , so why not break free and give your audience a bloody good time ?
sadly out of the literally hundreds made , i would estimate that maybe three are at all worth while .
and urban legend would certainly not be included amongst those three .
despite its considerable production value and the absence of any boom mics slipping into frame , it is just as awful as any no budget entry in the slasher sweepstakes . as far as the possibility of some good natured exploitation urban legend 's setting alone offers a myriad of promising possibilities : it takes place on a college campus , which is always an appropriate playground for the crazed killer .
you see , the campus is a community made up almost entirely of young people all in the midst of strange hormonal surges percolating beneath the surface .
all those young people are growing up together , going through all kinds of inexplicable emotional highs and lows , so naturally some weirdness is expected .
all the better for that elusive crazed killer .
coupled with the copious amounts of scantily clad coeds running around , and the introduction of a little exploitation into the proceedings should be a relatively easy task .
but alas ,
urban legend is not only idiotic and clich ? ?
full
; it 's way too clean , a slasher flick for the whole family with
no nudity , little gore , and much stupidity
.
this is the kind of movie where the killer drags dead victims from the scene of the crime for no reason other than , i dunno , exercise .
it 's the kind of movie where the villain calmly purses a running - like - the - wind - prey , yet still manages to catch that prey through some really awful editing techniques .
it 's the kind of movie where characters run into each other just as a loud clash reverberates on the soundtrack .
i really wish filmmakers would just retire that whole loud - noise - jump - scare thing .
yes the audience jumps , momentarily frightened , but would n't anyone if a loud sonic boom suddenly infiltrated a quiet room .
i lost all hope for the possibility of any genuine scares in urban legend about ten minutes in when i caught a glimpse of the killer .
apparently filmmakers are running out of creative ways to disguise their mad slashers .
in scream it was a ghost mask ( scary enough )
, in i know what you did last summer it was a fisher man 's rain slicker ( in the middle of summer no less ) , and in urban legend the disguise sinks to the level of mel brooks parody
: the villain wears an oversized parka with a fury hood ( ooh ? ? ?
scary ) intended to conceal his / her identity .
for urban legend 2 i humbly suggest a donald duck costume .
though i must admit , urban legend does have a winning premise for what could have been a somewhat entertaining exploitation film .
the film 's killer slices and dices comely college students to the tune of famous urban legends ( you know , like the babysitter gets threatening phone calls only to find that they 're coming from inside the house ) .
i wo n't spoil the surprise as to what urban legends are used , after all the film does offer fine 2 : 00 am cable viewing if you happen to be intoxicated enough . sad to say , it does n't include my favorite urban legend : a fairly graphic antidote concerning richard gere and a very unhappy gerbil .
now that would be scary .
before i leave you , i would like to bring to your attention
the third most irritating thing about the film ( the first being the lack of craft , the second the lack of exploitation ) -- its characters , all of whom are just about the most annoying group of people i 've ever spent an evening with .
only jared leto ( looking like a carbon copy of rob lowe from back in the day ) and alicia witt , as the resilient heroine , avoid vexatiousness .
the most annoying of the bunch is a tie between noxima girl rebecca gayheart and sitcom star michael rosenbaum , as a supremely irritating lout
( so irritating
i actually cheered his painful death , and i am not a cruel person ) .
ironically those aggravating sacks of human waste provide the only entertainment in the film ; if viewed as a vicarious fantasy urban legend can be mildly entertaining .
after all this is a movie that features the kind of faux hipsters i ca n't stand getting slaughtered , which is at least better than watching an entire film about people
i ca n't stand not getting slaughtered .
how can anyone with a three digit iq argue that it provides them . unfortunately , these kinds of flicks will continue to be produced lack of craft the disguise sinks to the level of mel brooks parody aggravating sacks of human waste the most annoying of the bunch supremely irritating lout the third most irritating thing alas a stale , fright - free horror movie the most annoying group of people i 've ever spent an evening with so irritating i lost all hope for the possibility of any genuine scares some really awful editing the film does offer fine 2 : 00 am cable viewing if you happen to be intoxicated enough lack of exploitation no nudity , little gore , and much stupidity alas it is just as awful as any no budget entry not only idiotic and clich ? ? full without an ounce of craft one idiotic super - hyped blockbuster flick after another has desensitized audiences the lack of enthusiastic exploitation