Product Details

• Actors: Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Michael Rosenbaum, Loretta Devine
• Directors: Jamie Blanks
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: August 31, 1999
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (281 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767819438
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,925 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #67 in	Video > Horror > Slasher Flicks

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
An attractive young woman is driving her car on a dark country road and singing along to the radio. She's running out of gas and so she pulls into a gas station (run by a jittery, stuttering Brad Dourif), but then flees what seems to be an attack, only to find the real threat in her backseat: a hooded killer with an ax who takes her head off with a well-aimed swing. You've heard the story before? Not surprising, given that it's one of the more famous urban legends borrowed for Urban Legend, a post-Scream exercise in self-referential horror. The students at an ivy-covered New England college are turning up dead, the victims of a serial killer who murders in the fashion of the "apocryphal" modern myths. It's all for the benefit of good girl with a dark secret Alicia Witt, the sole witness to most of the killings. Doe-eyed Rebecca Gayheart, as her gullible best friend, and Jared Leto, the ambitious campus journalist who tracks down the secret that hangs over the school, lead a cast of pretty young women, hunky guys, and campus characters, notably the suspicious professor Robert Englund, a genre legend in his own right as the star of seven Nightmare on Elm Street films. Take away the cheeky remarks and self-awareness and it's a throwback to the 1970s' rash of teen slasher movies, where sexually active teens are sliced, diced, and otherwise slaughtered in elaborate and ingenious ways. The increasingly preposterous film is no Scream, but the modestly stylish production has its moments. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Your typical slasher horror movie, just a different concept, September 16, 2004

By	Dumb Blonde Reviewing "I'm A Lonely Angel Stu... (In my bed) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Urban Legend (DVD)

I had to look at this poster everyday I was at school, for 2+ years, as it was in my registration/art class for some reason. So I probably know the poster better than I do the film!

I love this movie. It starts off with a girl singing along (badly) to Total Eclipse Of The Heart, which is one of my fave songs ever since it was played at my uncle Malcolm's wedding. And it always makes me feel sad. Basically, you've got another slasher movie, cashing in on the success of I Know What You Did Last Summers and Screams, but bringing in a different concept. And that's always cool when they do that, rather than just churn out another slasher flick.

Plus, it has a fantastic cast. Brad Dourif (who's uncredited for some reason) plays a stuttering gas station attendant, much like his role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which was a good ting on the director's part, as he's instantly recognisable because of that. (He also does the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play movies) Also starring is your usual teen movies actors and actresses: Joshua Jackson (with a very bad dye job, and watch out for the bit where he starts the car, and the Dawson's Creek theme blasts out!), Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, Tara Reid and Rebecca Gayheart. Tara Reid is nothing special in this, although there's plenty of cleavage on show for the men in the audience, she basically plays a dumb blonde. Someone who can't be missed is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. He plays up his college professor role to the max, playing one of the main suspects in the killings.

However, there are some severe plotholes in this movie, particularly towards the end. Alicia Witt is stabbed very badly, and looks in pain, but as soon as she gets off the bed, she's fine. No one tends to her wound, and the knife could have hit anything. The cop lives. (Enough said, and she manages to turn up for the sequel) The killer only has a motive for a couple of his/her victims, and from then on it just seems like random killings. The killer is shot (twice), gets thrown through a car windshield, and ends up in a river, yet still manages to live?!

If you ignore all these plotholes and there are probably more, then you'll survive the movie, and probably get the second one!

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars VERY CLICHED, May 19, 2000

By	The No Evil Killer "Know No Evil" (Everywhere, Anywhere, Nowhere) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Urban Legend (DVD)

Almost every horror cliche is present in this movie. Cars not starting, a girl not believing the guy is really getting killed, the dumb authority dismissing the heroine's cry for help as nonsense and many, many more. All teens (actors in their 20s) are booze and sex hounds who do nothing more than party and laugh at serious stuff. How annoying.

Once you find out who the killer is you realise that it would have taken precision planning on the scale of Desert Storm to pull off the murders that happen in the movie, even if some of them are purely by chance and some don't even coincide with Urban Legends which is what the whole movie is based on.

Many characters are given (very) brief roles and (very) small personalities. Then they are killed. Like they are just teenage meat that are killed for our pleasure. I thought Hollywood had stopped making conveyor belt movie like this, but obviously not.

When will film-makers realise that horror films should be surreal, elaborate, scary, daring and manipulative? Never apparently.

The only reason for watching this movie is Chris Young's pounding musical score. Once again he has creating a soundtrack that is simultaneously action packed and creepy.

The DVD is in Dolby 5.1 and is beautifully anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay, here's how it works..., December 17, 1999

By	CitiB "citiB" (Texas) - See all my reviews

if you know ANYTHING about Urban Legends from the many books written on them (or fireside camp stories you were told as a kid) then there's really no reason to see this movie. I knew EVERYTHING that was gonna happen before it happened. Most of the murders are based on some urban legend, which is creative, but alas for anyone with knowledge of these tales, it's also predictable. Ordinarily I wouldn't even review a movie like this because it's unfair for me to judge when it's disadvantage is so obvious. But this movie is flawed in other categories. For one, too many cheap scares. How many times are we gonna see a really tight shot on a person who bumps into something that turns out to be just a friend (sneaking up without introducing themselves for no apparent reason). These "jump" scares just aren't effective in this film. The beginning sequence showed promise and skill too, not going the route of the jump scare at all, relying more on atmosphere and tension buildup. Alas that was the last scene of the movie I enjoyed. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say that our killer must've been the progeny of Michael Myers or something, and I REFUSE to believe that they have the strength to carry out the murderous acts that have been performed. Quite frankly, I don't think it's a very good film, but go ahead and add a star to my review if you know little to nothing about Urban Legends in general.