Just the Ticket #197: Urban Legend

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

Serendipity can be a bitch, Ticketholders! Or maybe not; maybe it's just a seemingly random decision based on a seemingly random collection of tangential stimuli like the payoff of a bad mentalism trick. Computers do make nearly all of our decisions for us now, after all. That's why literacy is in the toilet and people can't speak to be heard (unless they're assholes or they're protesting something...or both...) or focus on one step of one instruction at a time or nominally identify the foods they eat every day. Except for me because I'm from a smarter generation and I cook and serve said food when I'm not here to provide you with my opinions through a rich reading experience. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Under the influence of this digital equivalent of a geriatric Satanist puppetmaster (because I have strong negative feelings about Longlegs), I have previously been unable to escape the moon, William Lustig (there is another film series he had a hand in that I forgot I was going to cover this year, and that's fine, so...oops!), H.P. Lovecraft (that one's going to linger, unfortunately), Cake Or Death (I don't really mind that one because it's funny), the Jaws beach closure trope (ditto), and now the productions of Neal H. Moritz.

After reading the Grimm Fairy Tales 2012 Halloween Edition (which anthologized urban legends) and watching and reading every I Know What You Did Last Summer thing ever made so far (book, TV series, movies, and the franchise is another Moritz joint, and its choice of killer was influenced by the Hook Man legend), I had another of my "damn; guess I'd better do this for Halloween" moments, and here we are. You may notice from the banner that I'm not reviewing the Bloody Mary threequel here. That's because, like I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, it's an unconnected, supernatural horror movie from the 2000s, and I've endured enough of that for one season, so it can go say its own name in the mirror three times and...find out.

As I mentioned in my I Know What You Did Last Summer film franchise review, the first entry in that series begins with the core four arguing about the Hook Man legend, and Urban Legend would be released in the following year along with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, both of which are Moritz co-productions.

Directed by Jamie Blanks (Valentine), Urban Legend is stacked with names: Jared Leto (Tron: Ares), Alicia Witt (Longlegs), Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville), Joshua Jackson (Doctor Odyssey), Danielle Harris (Hatchet), Tara Reid (Alone In the Dark), Loretta Devine (Dreamgirls), Rebecca Gayheart (Jawbreaker), and cameos by Natasha Gregson Wagner (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Brad Dourif (Chucky), and Robert Englund (A Nightmare On Elm Street). It's your basic late-90s Scream-alike slasher, with the differentiator being that the killer is (duh) urban legend-themed, and like a lot of all-soon-to-be-star teen horror films of its time and type, it is predicated on the "characters are students in a conveniently plot relevant class" trope, here with Robert Englund in a Sela Mathers-esque role as a professor of folklore and legends (minus the magic powers), and the characters' main subject of dialogue (whether or not it pertains to the cause of their dwindling numbers and personal losses because the killer has a theme, but also when they aren't being horny college brats or otherwise reminding us of their jobs and personalities) is urban legends. These include the Backseat Axe Murderer (Wagner's character is killed while listening to "Total Eclipse Of the Heart"—which is apparently about vampires having sex?), a variation of the Hook Man (Jackson's character is hung while Witt listens to the Dawson's Creek theme), Little Mikey exploding from Pop Rocks and Pepsi (Professor Englund shows the class a picture of John Gilchrist as a counterexample, which is fallacious logic because Little Mikey is a character and it's possible Gilchrist himself never ingested the combo, invalidating him as proof that the legend is false), a mashup of the Sorority/Fraternity Massacre (probably a social panic response to the Ted Bundy FSU massacre) and Bloody Mary (again, I'm not reviewing it, but the count here is changed from three to five to build more suspense for a cheap jumpscare), and The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs (the plot of When A Stranger Calls and Black Christmas, which Gayheart's character mentions happened in her hometown; a detail that comes off sus on repeat viewings).

The characters are (for the most part) likeable and decently acted, the suspense and red herrings are effective on first watch, the killer chews scenery in the third act, and the atmosphere of Pendleton University (filmed in spring on location at the University of Toronto and using aerial shots of Trinity College) and Stanley Hall (an unidentified, condemned building on the outskirts of Toronto) is enjoyably theatrical. However, the logistics of many of the kills are impractical, off-brand, or require timing that only a movie script could provide, and in addition to being filled with tropes from much older, much better movies (creepy harbinger characters, the Dean of P.U. wanting to keep the murder spree quiet because [insert Jaws beach closure joke here], etc.) and character archetypes from its contemporaries (Loretta Devine is basically a gender flip of L.L. Cool J's character from Halloween H20), and the plot resolves as a "stop me if you've heard this one": when a young man named David E. is killed in a car accident the summer after graduating from high school and the people responsible (played here by Witt and Wagner) go free, his loved one goes insane, dons hooded rain gear to conceal their face in shadow, and takes revenge on a circle of friends, culminating in a third act where the final girl falsely suspects her boyfriend and stumbles around a confined space, screaming as she discovers body after body, until the boyfriend ends the movie by sending the killer careening into the water to their falsely presumed death. Also, the local blonde celebrity gets a prolonged chase scene before her easily preventable death. Yeah, Urban Legend was initially criticized as a Scream clone, but as a Moritz co-production, it genuinely has more in common with the first I Know What You Did Last Summer. Almost to a fault.

Still and always, though, I enjoyed Urban Legend quite a bit more.

B+

The early 2000s were (in addition to real-world school shootings and 9/11, as well as more fun things like nu metal, commercial pop, and the superhero film renaissance) a time where I'd have at least four nickels for the number of teen slashers centered around filmmaking. 2002 was the year Busta Rhymes went Wu Tang on Michael Meyers while filming a reality show in Halloween: Resurrection. Speaking of nickels, meta horror, and the Wu Tang Clan, 2004 was the year Redman died in Seed Of Chucky (huh; two nickels). But before that, Scream 3 came out in 2000, followed seven months later that year by Urban Legends: Final Cut.

Committing to two tropes in the title alone (pluralizing the sequel like Aliens, and using "final" when it isn't the last sequel, like most major horror franchises have done at least once), Urban Legends: Final Cut was directed by John Ottman (his first and only feature-length directorial effort thus far, though he was mostly known as an editor and composer for BrIaN SiNgEr at the time), and wastes no time showing its level of originality by ripping off the Alien franchise with its title reveal and drawing direct comparison to a classic Twilight Zone episode and Final Destination (which also came out in 2000, before Final Cut) with an opening scene aboard a turbulence-afflicted airliner where everyone dies.

But it's meta because it was really a film shoot all along!

Continuing the "plot-relevant curriculum" trope from the previous film, Final Cut is set at a "prestigious film school" where the final girl (Jennifer Morrison, Once Upon A Time) has decided to do her thesis film about (duh) urban legends after talking to the academy's security guard (Loretta Devine, reprising her role from Urban Legend after her character was fired for refusing to participate in covering up the Pendleton killings). Much like the 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer, prepare for Final Cut to use a red herring archetype from the original as the actual killer, and to execute (puns!) on urban legends that were only mentioned in the first movie (like the kidney harvest).

Throw in a flat "dead character's secret twin brother is the final girl's love interest" (Vampire Diaries' Matthew Davis, because the shady love interest in a Moritz co-production sequel has to be played by a Matthew, I guess...) trope salad subplot, an obscure genre actor (Hart Bochner, a.k.a. the magically brainwashed hunk in distress from the old Supergirl movie, here giving Dollar Tree David Duchovny vibes as a film professor), and a few more before-they-were-famous faces (Blackish and To Tell the Truth star Anthony Anderson as half of a comedy relief special effects duo, and baby-faced Inhumans and Hell On Wheels star Anson Mount as a cocky, volatile red herring film student), and you have a recipe for...something, I'm sure.

While the setting again provides myriad options for genre atmosphere (the finale taking place on what looks like the set of a Paul Verhoeven—or maybe a Paul W. S. Anderson?—movie, for example), and Reese's (Devine) love of Foxy Brown leads to a literal Chekov's Gun scenario that I literally cannot be mad at because it reminds me of a Batman: The Animated Series episode, Urban Legends: Final Cut works far better as a "make what you know and love" commentary on the film industry than it does as a slasher sequel. Unlike the first movie, the killer here is forced into their gimmick by franchise necessity, stuck behind a mask that looks cool but has no contextual relevance or subversive purpose, acting unoriginally ("she told me she was going to film a scene about this, so I'm going to kill someone that exact way at the same time") for reasons that are more lame and petty than personal. Like, if Morrison's character decided to do her thesis film about Quentin Tarantino, would the killer have dressed like Bruce Lee in a dog mask and gone around scalping people or shooting them or burying them alive or killing them with cocaine, sodomy, foot massages, and metrically weighed hamburgers? It doesn't make any sense!

But as a meta-commentary on the movie industry, it's like The Last Horror Film for a modern crowd with a far more coherent narrative (even ending on a similarly edited stinger that is among the most infamous unfulfilled bits of sequel chum ever filmed). It wears its Hitchcock influence on its sleeve (the fictional award that the students are all competing for, and which the killer was previously denied, is even named after him, but the suspenseful elements that work, some of the shot composition, and the mystery all have that feel as well), and is ahead of its time in addressing the sleazy elements of Hollywood (White Chicks' Jessica Cauffiel plays an alleged former porn actress failing to go legit before she is literally snuffed, Money Plane's Joey Lawrence plays a director's nepo-baby son who offers access to his connections in exchange for...favors, and Island Of Dr. Moreau actor Marco Hofschneider has a bit part as a grabassy, bon vivant cameraman). The "it was meta all along!" and

moments wear "psychological thriller bullshit"-thin despite their rarity, though (only three total), for how long they take and how their effects on the plot approach nonexistent. As a result of this and the film's split focus between meta passion project and slasher sequel, combined with the lame, incongruous, cookie-cutter villain, the writing suffered, as did my own passion and consistency of investment. Not that my instantaneously triggered cynicism helped matters that much.

C-

Another thing that hasn't helped matters much in terms of getting this out on time (I'm currently three and a half hours late) is Vampire Survivors. Just like with their massive anniversary DLC last Halloween, poncle dropped a new update this week with two new main game stages (one that you have to gamble with your free in-game currency to unlock and explore—unless you use an Arcana to bring all the goodies to you—and a maze with teleporting minotaurs and a Metal Gear-sized juggernaut where NPCs steal your weapons and buffs, both of which are fun), an expansion to last year's DLC (the Adventure is tough as balls and might be broken because I've completed the same achievement half a dozen times and it hasn't registered yet), and a free DLC crossover with Balatro (that I haven't touched yet because I'm stuck on the Castlevania Adventure and waiting for news from BigBluePurple on what I should do to fix the progress block.

Now, it's time again to slow production and boost media consumption as we head into November (so that I'm ready for Christmas and New Year's).

Have a happy Halloween, and as always, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because my best friend's cousin's former roommate knew a guy who died from not doing that, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my legendary content.

Ticketmaster,

Out.