The Urban Legend people seem to think they have hit on quite a gimmick in these post-Scream days.  Why not take all those famous myths and campfire stories that have been passed down the line and dramatize them… converting them into gruesome murders? 

Too bad that no one ever considered that even when you embrace and wallow in a cliché, it doesn’t change the fact that it is still just a cliché. 

This film is set in what must be the world’s most low-rent film college where everyone has to make a horror film in order to win a scholarship (what happened to film schools wanting you to emulate Truffaut, Sturges or Fellini…?  This school apparently wants you to be Tobe Hooper.) 

All the stupid standards of the genre are slavishly adhered to, without the slightest hint of irony.  No one calls the police even though students are being butchered at an alarming rate.  Students go out to investigate strange noises in the dark alone.  Our heroine puts her trust and her life in the hands of a man she has just met (although in what may be the one original idea in the movie, he doesn’t turn out to be the killer.)  These kids are so dumb that they probably deserve to die. 

The only thing I could think was: how did once-respected actors like Joey Lawrence (Blossom), Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale) and Hart Bochner (Breaking Away) get stuck in tripe like this?  This movie doesn’t even live up to the low standard that the first Urban Legend set. (9/00)

Jay S. Jacobs