Urban Legend (1998) Rated R Starring: Jared Leto, Alicia Witt and Rebecca Gayheart Rating: out of

Urban Legend is the latest of these rather awful features to which I've subjected myself. The story revolves around a college campus in Maine that has a rather sordid past. Supposedly, there was a massacre in one of the dormitories 25 years ago. The current student body is pretty sure that the story of the killing isn't true. They think it's just an urban legend. In typical horror film fashion, someone thinks its a bright idea to mark the anniversary of this event -- whether or not it actually took place -- with a frat house beer bash. Soon, the campus population is starting to decline. Each of the murder victims has been offed in a manner that relates to urban legends. Hmmmm...

I will credit the film's basic plot device -- the use of the urban legend -- as being pretty inventive. Who hasn't thought about whether those stories of gangs using flashing headlights as a signal to kill someone are true? Who hasn't heard or told the well-worn tale of a killer that hid in the backseat of a car? Given the proper set-up, I think this could have made a truly scary movie. Unfortunately, the movie's decline begins shortly after the killer makes his first move.

The cast are the typical bunch of pretty faces and perfect bodies found only in horror movies (and prime time TV.) Only one character -- a sacrificial lamb to the killer, of course -- shows any true flaws. She's a manic depressive who searches for sex partners on the Internet. So, of course, she deserves to be strangled in her own bed. (Oops...sorry. I didn't spoil much. Believe me, the few weak plot twists this film finds the strength to deliver aren't hard to predict.)

It's a shame that such a good idea is wasted on this clichéd effort. Jamie Blanks, who's directing for the first time here, needs to work on his timing. Even the cheap attempts to make the audience jump by using a short burst of loud music while something suddenly appears onscreen don't even work here. I will credit Blanks with keeping the on-screen gore to a minimum, but he doesn't deliver much for the imagination to work with either. The result is a rather dull film.

Scream is still the champion of this new generation of slasher movies.

Trivia: The book sitting on the desk in Professor Wexler's desk in his class is "The Vanishing Hitchhiker," which is one of the seminal texts on urban legends. (Source: The Internet Movie Database)