IHdb

ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - September 25th

"URBAN LEGEND" released in 1998

Ever heard the story about the two kids making out on lover's lane and there's a killer with a hook for a hand on the loose? Or the babysitter getting phone calls from a murderer hiding upstairs? Well, at Pendleton University, someone is taking these legends as inspiration for a vicious killing spree in Jamie Blanks' directorial debut, Urban Legend!

Watch the Urban Legend trailer below!

Don't miss out on future blogs, trailers, and clips IHdb has coming up

by Following IHdb's Facebook page above!

During a stormy night, college student Michelle Mancini (Natasha Gregson Wagner) has a dangerous encounter with a stuttering Gas Station Attendant (Brad Dourif), believing he is attacking her. Michelle realizes too late that the attendant was actually trying to warn her of a real attacker hiding in the back seat, and as Michelle drives off, the hooded figure in the back seat decapitates her with an axe. The next day, student Parker Riley (Michael Rosenbaum) relates how one of the campus halls, Stanley Hall, had been the site of a massacre in 1973, to fellow students Natalie Simon (Alicia Witt), Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart), and Damon Brooks (Joshua Jackson), although Parker's story is discredited by school journalist Paul Gardner (Jared Leto). Later on, the group attend Professor Wexler's (Robert Englund) lecture on urban folklore, just as news of Michelle's death reach the campus. Distraught over the murder of her friend, Natalie is persuaded to take a drive with Damon. While in the woods, Damon is attacked by the killer, who hangs him from a tree with the rope attached to the car. As the killer then approaches Natalie, she attempts to run him over, strangling Damon to death in the process. Natalie flees and alerts security guard Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine) who doesn't believe her when they find the car and Damon's corpse missing. Returning to her dorm room, Natalie leaves the lights off, as she thinks her goth roommate Tosh (Danielle Harris) is having sex - but she is actually being strangled to death by the killer, who leaves a blood scrawled message on the wall the next morning; "Aren't you glad you didn't tun on the lights?". Realizing Damon, Michelle, and Tosh's murders resemble urban legends, Natalie confesses to Brenda that one night she and Michelle once tried to re-enact an urban legend; they were driving with their headlights turned off and pursued the first driver who flashed them, causing him to run off the road and die in the crash. Natalie also believes the killer is still on campus, despite the news reporting that the Gas Station Attendant was arrested for Michelle's murder. That night, while Parker hosts a fraternity party to commemorate the Stanley Hall "Massacre", two more people die; school dean Adams (John Neville) is attacked in the garage and run over by his car forcing the emergency spikes into his back, and Parker's girlfriend Sasha (Tara Reid) is killed with an axe on live radio! Paul tracks down Natalie and explains that the '73 Stanley Hall massacre actually happened and the pair head to the now abandoned Stanley Hall to confront the killer and put an end to this urban legend once and for all!

[to Natalie, Brenda, Paul, and Sasha]
Parker: Don't you guys get it? Come on, it's just like that urban legend.
Natalie: What are you talking about?
Parker: You know the story, A boy and a girl, parked out in the woods, making out...
Brenda: [to Natalie] You made out with him?!

Top and Above:   Students Damon (Joshua Jackson), Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart), Parker (Michael Rosenbaum) and Natalie (Alicia Witt) attend Prof. Wexler's (Robert Englund) lecture on urban myths

With the release of Scream in 1996, horror films became popular again in Hollywood, with producers and studios looking to cash in on the revival. Original Film producer Neal H. Moritz was in the middle of developing I Know What You Did Last Summer - with Scream writer Kevin Williamson - when he received a faux trailer for the un-produced movie by Australian filmmaker, Jamie Blanks. Blanks had already secured an agent in Los Angeles based on his short film made at Melbourne’s Swinburne Film School, Silent Number - which revolves around a babysitter receiving a number of disturbing phone calls, with the voice pleading for help, and later discovers the calls are not coming from any normal source. Moritz was impressed by Blanks trailer but the directing job for I Know What You Did Last Summer had already gone to Jim Gillespie. Nevertheless, Moritz kept the young filmmaker in mind when searching for a director for his next project, Urban Legend, written by first time screenwriter Silvio Horta, and hired Blanks to helm the picture.

Alicia Witt was cast as the films heroine Natalie Simon, the part having previously been offered to Melissa Joan Hart and Reese Witherspoon. Jodi Lyn O'Keefe was originally offered the role of Sasha, but turned it down to take part in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, when Moritz turned to his I Know What You Did Last Summer star Sarah Michelle Gellar. Gellar accepted the role but had to back out due to schedule conflicts with filmming for her TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The role was later taken by Tara Reid (American Pie). Upcoming actors Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson, Rebecca Gayheart, and Michael Rosenbaum rounded out the remaing cast. They were joined by cameo's from horror legends Robert Englund (the Nightmare on Elm Street films), Brad Dourif (the Child's Play series), Danielle Harris (Halloween 4 & 5), and Julian Richings (Mimic and Cube), as well as by veteran actors John Neville (TV's The X-Files) as Dean Adams and Loretta Devine as security guard Reese Wilson (and the only cast member to return to cameo in the sequel, Urban Legends: Final Cut).

The Killer: Don't you want to be an urban legend, Nat? All your friends are now.

Top:   The killer leaves a blood scrawled message for Natalie;

Above:   Parker finds out about the "old lady drying her dog in the microwave" legend!

Primarily filmed on location at the University of Toronto, it was the filmmakers original intention to set the story during winter - hence the design of the killer's thick hooded outfit. But with production beginning in April, the Spring weather was too warm and it was decided to drop the winter aspect of the story-line rather than apply fake snow in all the outdoor scenes and dress all the extras in winter outfits (but they did keep the killer's costume). Interestingly, during filming of the opening sequence, the producer's actually had to change the 4x4 driven by the killer's first victim from a Land Rover to a Ford Expedition when they discovered the Land Rover was too small to swing an axe inside of it! For these scenes and others, the hooded killer was played by Matt Birman, before Brenda is revealed as the real killer. In fact, in a cryptic film spoiler, the Latin motto of the university seen on the emblem in some scenes, translates as; "The Best Friend Did It"!

The actual legends used in the murder scenes were taken from the most popular stories in urban folklore, including; the Hook, Killer in the Backseat, the Pop Rocks myth, the Kidney Heist, the Headlight Flashing Initiation, the Ankle Slasher Under the Car, "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" (a variation of, "People Can Lick Too") and, most disturbingly, the Old Lady dries wet dog in microwave legend! Of course other stories are touched on in the picture. During Wexler's lecture he references The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs, later Natalie and Brenda play Bloody Mary outside Stanley Hall, and on Sasha's radio show she hears a number of university myths, including replacing a room mate's birth control pills with baby aspirin, having a stomach pumped after performing oral sex, and an extremely rare (but surprisingly real) case of Penis Captivus.

Above:   Director Jamie Blanks on set of Urban Legend

Although Urban Legend was a very successful at the box office, grossing over $70 million against a $14 million budget, the movie was not well received by critics who judged it (perhaps unfairly) against other genre pictures of the period, especially Scream. Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes' consensus was, "Elements of Scream reappear in a vastly inferior vehicle". Felix Vasquez wrote for Cinema Crazed, "So very early in to the movie, you’ll want to see who is next to die and in what urban legend form, rather than wanting to discover who or whom the killer may be... but by the middle half of the story it seems to have no idea how to orchestrate it all to form an interesting mystery". Anita Gates, writing for the Boston Globe, on the other hand gave a positive review, stating that, "Urban Legend is a teen-age moviegoer's dream. It has familiar young television stars, familiar older stars with cult followings (Robert Englund as the aforementioned professor, John Neville as the dean), an edgy sense of humor, a tricky plot and characters too genre-savvy for their own good. Maybe there will be an oversaturation of Scream-inspired horror films someday soon, but this one feels fresh."

Urban Legend was followed by two sequels; Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was released theatrically in 2000, and the direct-to-video Urban Legends: Bloody Mary in 2005.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   20%

_______________________________________