Like other urban legends, Urban Legend is crap. It is an interesting premise: a serial killer that enacts popular urban legends to do in his victims. Yes, there are some real stretches in the probability department, I mean, how often does a killer get a chance to find a couple parked in the woods, and hang the guy so that his feet dangle on the roof? Nor would the killer be the smartest guy to actually behead the driver of the speeding vehicle in whose backseat he has hidden (don't mention that the gas station attendant actually tries to warn her by telling her that her credit card company needs her on the phone). These things would be hard to bring off in the real world, but an audience will give you lots of room if the rest of the movie is right.

Director: Jamie Blanks

Stars: Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson

Rating: R

Release: 09-25-1998

Time: 99 minutes

Buy Movie at Amazon.com Sadly, it isn't. Urban Legend relies on cheap, worn tricks. Fellow MMMR reviewer Bob and I sat in our stadium style seats and called every move before it played on the screen. This is paint-by-the-numbers fright flick making. The movie abounds with flaws, such as portraying a college campus that apparently has one security officer who works all shifts everyday.

The movie's few redeeming moments include a couple of in-jokes, one, poking at Joshua Jackson's "Dawson's Creek" popularity and the other at one starlet's Noxzema add background. Also, the two female leads, whose names I very stupidly never marked, are extremely attractive. There are some nice camera shots and some decent atmosphere established as well, but these small treasures cannot save a movie as bad as Urban Legend.