One egregious offender is 1998’s Urban Legend with Alicia Witt, star of Longlegs with Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe. In Urban Legend, Witt plays a college student (alongside budding stars like Jared Leto and Joshua Jackson) who is being terrorized by a killer recreating urban legends. While the cast is fun to watch – especially Rebecca Gayheart – and the premise interesting, Urban Legend just doesn’t have the same oomph as its predecessors, no matter how much material it takes from them.
‘Urban Legend’s Killer Has an Obsession Like the Killers in ‘Scream’
In Scream, everyone talks about horror movies all the time; that’s part of its charm as a horror movie itself. The killers in particular love horror movies, quizzing one of their victims about the genre before murdering them and generally basing their actions around horror tropes. It works because the characters directly comment on and poke fun at horror moviestaples while being in the middle of one themselves.
Urban Legend attempts to ape this obsession angle by focusing on – you guessed it – urban legends. Stories that have permeated virtually every community in America, like the classic about the babysitter receiving menacing calls from inside the very house in which she’s watching the children. Some of these tales have been the focus of their own horror movies. The babysitter story in particular might be the most famous example, inspiring When a Stranger Calls from 1979, which then spawned a ’90s sequel and a 2000s remake of the same name. This kind of hook honestly isn’t terrible; the filmmakers are taking stories plenty of people are familiar with and making them “real.” But it just doesn’t have the same satirical bite as Scream. When you take that away, all you’re left with is a few okay kills and a run-of-the-mill story that’s been done plenty of times before.
‘Urban Legend’s Killer Wears a Similar Outfit to the Killer in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Both I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream feature killers wearing distinctive costumes. This isn’t unusual for horror movies, of course, but it’s typically a good idea to choose a costume that stands out from the crowd. Unfortunately, Urban Legend went with a less-impressive version of the raincoat and hook the killer from I Know What You Did Last Summer wears: a winter parka and an axe.
Not only does it feel too similar to I Know What You Did Last Summer, it makes zero sense thematically. The axe is the generic murder weapon that can be substituted into many urban legends, but the parka has no connection at all to those tales. It’s not even wintertime in the movie, but for some reason, multiple characters have the same exact style of parka in their wardrobes. It’s a hilariously lazy attempt to insert red herrings into the plot.
‘Urban Legend’s Plot Is Similar to ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Although many critics compared Urban Legend unfavorably to Scream on its release, the movie’s plot is actually a lot closer to that of the original I Know What You Did Last Summer. In addition to having a similar-looking villain, the motivations behind the killings are virtually the same as well. In I Know What You Did Last Summer, the killer wants revenge on college kids who left him for dead in a hit-and-run. There’s also a subplot involving him killing his daughter’s boyfriend; the boyfriend was responsible for the daughter’s death in a different car accident.
In Urban Legend, the murderer is also seeking revenge against a pair of college students. And just like I Know What You Did Last Summer, they caused a car accident that killed the murderer’s boyfriend. A few of the roles have been swapped around, but the general gist is the same in both movies. They even share a “twist” ending jumpscare to reveal the killer is still around. Considering its release just one year after I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend just feels wholly unoriginal.
The Cast of ‘Urban Legend’ Is Its Best Feature
A knock-off it may be, but Urban Legend does have one thing going for it: its wild cast. Alongside main protagonist Alicia Witt is a who’s who of up-and-coming ’90s heartthrobs. Jared Leto had already starred in My So-Called Life and was on the verge of his star-making role in Requiem for a Dream. Joshua Jackson was also just starting on Dawson’s Creek when Urban Legend came out, and American Pie was just around the corner for Tara Reid. In just a couple of years, Michael Rosenbaum would be Lex Luthor in Smallville.
While it’s fun to watch these now highly recognizable faces at the very beginning of their careers, most of their performances are pretty standard. The real stand-out is Rebecca Gayheart as the best friend of Alicia Witt’s character. (It’s also worth noting that Gayheart had also appeared in Scream 2 just one year before Urban Legend). Gayheart goes from average college student to wild woman in the finale, and her over-the-top acting is a genuine highlight of the film.
Urban Legend also ropes in two Hollywood horror legends to add some spice. Brad Dourif, voice of Chucky in the Child’s Play franchise, has a small but fun cameo in the beginning of the film as a seemingly menacing gas station attendant. But the real powerhouse is Robert Englund, the actor beneath the makeup of Freddy Krueger. Englund plays a professor of American folklore who quickly becomes the prime suspect in the urban legend killings. A horror icon and some fun scenery-chewing doesn’t exactly save Urban Legend from being a lesser version of Scream. But there is a kernel of originality in using urban legends as the hook for your horror movie, and it’s goofy enough in parts to be worth a watch. A reboot was reportedly in the works, but only time will tell if Urban Legend is worth a third-act comeback.
Urban Legend is available to watch on Max in the U.S.
