Urban Legends: Final Cut [DVD] [2000]

UL2 has a very sophisticated edge which gives the movie a far more adult feel, and John Ottman's direction is on par with the veterans of the genre as he demonstrates a great knowledge of both how to create good scares/jumps, and also how to make the images on screen look good without being too crowded. In truth, the entire movie reeks of visual style, and the settings are beautifully shot. For a low-budget film, it definitely doesn't look it.

All of the cast members are a joy, including Jennifer Morrison - who brings the heroine Amy to life on the screen - and the viewer can't help but like her from the start. There is something very fresh and original (in truth, this can be said about the entire movie) in her performance, and when paired up with Matt Davis the film becomes something very special. Additional cast like Jessica Chauffiel (whose bubbly energy fills all her scenes with a gritty humour), Joseph Lawrence (who is under-used, but makes a good red herring) and Anthony Anderson & Michael Bacall (who play Dirk and Stan respectively, and are hilarious with their geeky one-liners) are all nice departures from the cliched bit-parts of most Horrors. Another nice addition is Eva Mendes, as Amy's best friend, who strays from the typical "heroine's timid field-mouse best friend" cliche as a loud-mouthed lesbian. It's a shame that she didn't have more screen time (although, granted, for a movie of this genre she gets her fair share), as the scenes that she is a part of are all filled with some nice banter between characters.

Director Ottman's subtle score is another bonus, as the combination of his already-spread composer wings and unique visual penache create something that is genuinely creepy the entire way through. The combination of quite, music-less moments and loud crescendos give the film an off-beat ambience.

The killer's costume itself (a fencing mask doubled with a long trench coat) is very different to most outfits, and added little touches - like the killer's breathe steaming through the mask, and electric sparks rebounding off the metal - give our weapon-weilding maniac a very human-yet-sterile feel, which immediately invokes fear.

Despite many viewer's criticisms that no urban legend deaths (save the first) were involved in the film, this is not true - how could this movie be called Urban Legends unless it had that feature? All deaths cleverly used legends that most of us have heard of (although perhaps not many have heard the 'Tunnel of Terror' story...), and there is a gritty realism to them. Most use only sound alone rather than graphic detail in order for the audience to use their imagination (what's in the mind is always far scarier than what we see on-screen), and for once the motive behind the deaths isn't hugely ambiguous!

There are some brilliant scenes to be found in UL2. The first and second death are both some of the scariest moments ever put onto film - again, Kudos to Ottman for his clever direction and editing! - and a scene in which the killer plays the keys on a piano Amy is hiding under was extremely unsettling, and for some reason really gets under your skin (maybe it's the out-of-control emotion that the chords stir inside us). As well as these more action-based scenes, there are some very nice character scenes, including the moment that Amy discovers Trevor in the bell tower, and the first time Amy meets Reese. The climax is excellently-worked, and provides a memorable ending to the film.

I recently purchased the DVD, and after watching the deleted scenes footage, it was a shame that some of the more emotional scenes were not kept in the final print. A scene which demonstrates first Amy's writer's block (before encountering Reese), and then her guilt at straying from documentaries gives an often-ignored insight into her character, and could have done a lot more to let the audience see what makes her tick. I can understand that for the younger audience who are only interested in seeing blood and guts, the deletion of these scenes would have been no problem, but for the more mature audience we would definitely have liked to have seen these scenes involved. A director's cut someday please, John?

Other than this quibble (which probably only affects the DVD-viewing audience of this movie) Urban Legends: Final Cut is an atmospheric, character-fuelled movie that cleverly mixes Hitchcock-ian-style mystery with scary scenes that will have your skin crawling. Congratulations to John Ottman for a masterful movie debut, and let's hope we see more from you in the future!

The movie is such a piece of undeniable trash that its story is just a pain to even look back on. We are introduced to select students of Alpine University, which is a renowned film school where, every year, one person receives the Hitchcock Award for the best thesis film. This sparks the attention of dithy documentarian Amy Mayfield, who jumps into the project after hearing a story from Reese, the new campus security guard and the sole returning character from the first film.

She writes her script, which, wouldn't you know it, is about tall tales known as urban legends, and begins gathering up her cast and crew. She has some competition, though: Toby is filming a horror thriller that takes place on an airplane (shades of "Final Destination," maybe?), and his cast and crew are much more dilligent. Others include Travis, whose film "The Gods of Men" is in the finishing stages, and Graham, whose the son of a Hollywood mogul.

And this is where our killings take place, leaving us with dead bodies, useless plot twists, and a plot that borrows all it can from just about every horror franchise it can get its hands on. The movie even goes so far as to insult its own name, because its killings, with the exception of one, are not even considered urban legends in reality. Perhaps the writers just ran out of creativity, or the legends that were left weren't bloody and stupid enough for the demographic group this film aims itself at.

And if there ever was a movie that copycats, this is it. The whole actors-involved-in-a-film-getting-killed-according-to-the-script thing has been done already, much better in "Scream 3," but "UL:FC" doesn't seem to care. It treats the material as if its new and fresh, which leaves us with a wasted six dollars for a movie that we could've rented already. And the ending is so blatantly reminiscent of the on-stage showdown in "Scream 2," which places our killer and prey on the set of some movie where they have access to all sorts of materials where they can prolong the inevitable ending in which the real killer will meet his demise. And don't even start criticizing me about giving away the ending: the plot's sky-high predictability factor will not only give away the identity of the killer, but will leave you with no surprises.

The actors are your typical ensemble of pseudo-teenage college kids who have nothing better to do than run around and corner themselves into fatal situations than to actually use their heads. Jennifer Morrison plays Amy, who never comes off as being more than the average run-of-the-mill clueless college groupie, as does the rest of the cast composed mostly of unknowns who probably think that this movie will lead them to new heights of fame (what a mislead). It's easy to see why Joey Lawrence, of TV's "Blossom," billed himself as "Joseph." Be sure to look out for Rebecca Gayheart in a surprise cameo that is the cheese atop the cracker.

There's something to be said about movies like this, movies that have absolutely no creativity and revel in that fact, but my mother taught me never to use words of that nature. In short, "Urban Legends: Final Cut" is yet another example of Hollywood wasting our money by giving us nothing new and thinking we'll be satisfied. If you must be scared, then be scared of the fact that, like it or not, this is the future of horror movies, and we're stuck with it.