Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Is it on the same level as the Scream movies? No, but it certainly belongs to the same family. An enjoyable flick with a fair share of well-executed whodunnits and scares.

I started my journey as a horror fan in the late '90s, during the post-Scream slasher revival, so I have a nostalgic affection for these films. I've been revisiting a few of them this October to get into the proper Halloween spirit, and I must admit that they don't hold up all that well, though I'm not entirely surprised by that.Urban Legend has as its center gimmick the conceit that a killer stalking a college campus is utilizing urban legends (hence the title) to dispatch of clueless coeds. This leads to a few fun set pieces that function as sort of a Rogues' Gallery of so many of the myths you remember reading about on Snopes. Unfortunately, the urban legend that most frightened me as a child--the one about the girl cowering in her dorm room as someone scratches aggressively at her door, only to discover in the morning that it was her mortally wounded roommate attempting to secure help after being attacked by an escaped maniac--is nowhere to be found.The writing is pretty clunky. All the characters are archetypes (the Frat Boy, the Prankster, the Supportive but Nondescript Best Friend, and, of course, the Virginal Heroine) and they constantly spew Kevin-Williamson-esque "hip" dialogue replete with pop culture references and colorful epithets. Everybody spends a good deal of time gaslighting the Virginal Heroine for absolutely no reason and very little makes sense. The direction, by the same token, is competent but never steers away from the ridiculousness of the premise (the killer's schemes to reenact the urban legends are awfully contingent on coincidence and luck). There's no shortage of unintentionally hilarious moments.At the same time, it's never boring, nor does it ever become too insulting to your intelligence (which is to say, it is insulting to your intelligence, but just insulting enough, I suppose). And the cast is good, doing what they can with the flat material they're given. Look for fun cameos by horror veterans Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, Brad "Chucky" Dourif, and Danielle Harris of Halloween 4 fame as the raging Goth queen, whom we know we are meant to condemn in our hearts because she is so crazy she has to take--gasp!--Lithium.

Just another of the glut of teen slashers following in the wake of SCREAM, this one is much more entertaining than I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. For a start, the acting is better, and plus there is a higher gore content. URBAN LEGEND, while obeying all of the most copied clichés in the genre (particularly the jump scene when someone is bumped into, this happens five or six times in the film), still manages to be quite entertaining, in a funny-bad way.For a start, the cast is better than usual. While the main cast members are the fresh-faced, flawless beauties that we've all come to know and hate, even they aren't too bad. Alicia Witt is boring in the title role, while Jared Leto just needs to look pretty and run around a bit. The best actor of the bunch is Joshua Jackson, who is likable as the class joker, although unfortunately he isn't in the film for very long. John Neville fills the shoes of the headmaster well enough, while Robert Englund enjoys his small role as a suspicious college lecturer. Brad Dourif also has a small, scene-stealing cameo appearance as a stuttering garage attendant.The film benefits from a clever, tricky opening murder with a twist that I didn't see coming. After this excellent scene though, it just goes downhill, as to be expected. Bland college life is punctuated by some brutal murders, most of which are mildly clever and diverting, although horrendously contrived. The blood flows quite freely in these scenes, although they aren't really all that gory, apart from an excellent moment when John Neville is run over by a car and crushed into a row of spikes. This is the best murder of them all.The identity of the murderer is kept secret right up until the end, so it's quite fun playing guess the killer. However the fact that the killer wears a giant parka and carries an axe is very clichéd and the ending of the film is just plain stupid, with the killer coming back time after time after time for one last chill. These drawn out endings are really grating after a while, and you just want the film to end, not go on longer. While URBAN LEGEND isn't brilliant by a long way, it's a lot better than I thought it would be (due to all the negative comments heard on release). If you're a slasher fan then its an above average example of the genre, if not, it's a good film to watch with friends and to play guess the killer with. I did, and I had a lot of fun.

Released in 1998, "Urban Legend" chronicles events at a New England university where a mad killer is on the loose, imitating urban legends. Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart and Tara Reid play the three main female students while Michael Rosenbaum, Jared Leto and Joshua Jackson play the main dudes. Robert Englund is on hand as a dubious professor, Julian Richings as a weird maintenance guy, John Neville as the dean and Loretta Devine as campus security.While this is a slickly-made and entertaining late 90's slasher with a stellar cast, it's also hackneyed, cartoony, contrived, over-the-top and unbelievable; the revelation of the killer in the last act is particularly roll-your-eyes. It's also not scary. But, like I said, it's amusing and polished; I also like the NE locations (Toronto area). Alicia Witt plays a strong heroine and it's inexplicable that she didn't become more popular, although she's had steady work ever since.The film runs 96 minutes and was shot at Humber College, Toronto, Ontario, and nearby Trent University with an opening aerial shot of Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ontario.GRADE: B- (6.5/10)