Detailed Instructions: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
See one example below:
Problem: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
Solution: N
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Problem: what hath kevin williamson wrought ?
while the horror movie revival spurred on by his _ scream _ has yielded a few decent entries in the genre--_i_know_what_you_did_last_summer _ ,
_ halloween :
_ h20 _ , and
_
scream_2
_ --it must be noted that williamson himself had a hand in the writing of those films .
those williamson - less post-_scream _ efforts , among them _ wishmaster _ and the recent _ disturbing_behavior _ , have been frightening all right --
frighteningly , insultingly _ bad _
. add to that list
_ urban_legend _ , which takes a promising premise and runs it through a predictable meat grinder of idiocy .
the influence of williamson on screenwriter silvio horta is clear in two key areas .
first , the opening sequence , like that of _ scream _ , is an extended set piece detailing the singular murder that gets the proverbial ball rolling .
this sequence , in which pendleton college coed michelle mancini ( natasha gregson wagner ) is decapitated while driving , also reveals the other obviously williamson - esque touch : the killer 's look .
dressed in a large hooded parka , wielding an axe , the killer bears more than a passing resemblance to the _ i_know . . .
_ fisherman , sans the hook .
one thing horta does not borrow from williamson , however , is the intriguing premise .
students at pendleton are being killed by way of urban legends -- those contemporary bits of " mythology " passed from person to person , group to group , year to year that become so embedded in the social consciousness .
it hardly matters if they are true or not , such as the tall tale that mikey from the life cereal commercials died from a fatal combination of pop rocks and pepsi ( he did n't ) .
michelle , slain by the " killer lurking in the backseat " of lore , is but
the first to fall prey to an urban legend come true ; as the body count rises , fellow pendleton student natalie ( alicia witt ) suspects not only a link between the murders , but a personal link to her past as well .
the setup shows promise , but the story never takes off , due in large part to horta and the director , the aptly named jamie blanks , who fires round afer round of his namesake in terms of suspense and scares .
too many of the would - be shocks are fakeouts reliant on bombastic music cues , and the film 's chase scenes are riddled with the cliches that _ scream
_ tried to subvert , like screaming damsels knowingly running themselves into dead ends when they should -- and could -- run out the front door .
but that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cliches ; there 's also the climactic villain confession , in which a contrived and way - too - convenient motive is revealed , not to mention the credit card opening up the locked door trick , which is a cliche in any film genre .
banks and horta 's ( intentional ) attempts at humor are also lame ;
the fact that the best gags are lazy , in - jokey references to the other credits of co - stars joshua jackson and rebecca gayheart says a lot about the imagination of their humor .
some laughs are also had when the rather predictable identity of the killer is revealed , but i 'm not so sure if some of the more hilarious things about it were meant to be so .
the filmmakers do n't get much help from their onscreen talent .
i was far from a fan of bland _ i_know . . .
_ starlet jennifer love hewitt , but i 'd talke her
any day ove the dreadfully stiff and uncharismatic witt , whose inept attempts at emoting were often met with laughter
; witt has a pefect foil in her equally pesence - challenged leading man , jared leto .
_ dawson's_creek _ star jackson mugs his way thorugh a glorified cameo ; gayheart displays all the depth and range of , well , a noxzema spokeswoman ; and robert englund lends the film little more than his freddy krueger pedigree as a folklore professor .
granted , the cast is hampered by their material .
loretta devine , who has done some fine work in films such as _
waiting_to_exhale _ , is saddled with the ridiculous role of a pam grier - worshiping campus security guard .
the recently resuscitated horror genre can not rely on the efforts one man -- namely , kevin williamson -- to stay alive . if other filmmakers continue to make such shoddy product as _ urban_legend _ , the genre looks to once again go the way of screen slashers ' many victims .
Solution:
N