URBAN LEGEND
American Horror Stories
RELEASED OUT NOW! 1998 | 18 | Blu-ray
Directors Jamie Blanks, John Ottman,
Mary Lambert
Cast Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson
Heard the one about the ’90s slasher franchise where only the first one was half-decent? Nope, not the one with the killer fisherman. The other one. The one where urban legends came true in increasingly silly ways: we’re talking axe murderers lurking in back seats, calls coming from inside the house, and unwary victims waking up to find their kidneys have been removed.
The first Urban Legend movie – produced to meet the postScream demand for more teen horror – gleefully crams in as many such legends as possible.
A cast of them-off-the-telly faces makes the budget feel higher than it was, while minor roles for Robert Englund and Danielle Harris seem calculated to get horror fans on side. If it’s not scary, well, at least the mystery is well constructed, and there’s never a dull moment.
It’s all downhill from there. Urban Legends: Final Cut attempts an ambitious movie-within-amovie structure as a killer stalks film school students, but can’t settle on a tone, while Urban Legends: Bloody Mary is a grimly derivative ghost story that’d be a drag even at half the length.
Extras 88 Films’ swish package includes six art cards, a 44-page booklet and a poster.
The first film comes as a two-disc set: one features three commentaries and a trailer; the other an eight-part documentary (147 minutes total); extended interviews (74 minutes total); behind-the-scenes footage (54 minutes total); a contemporary Making Of (10 minutes); a deleted scene (three minutes), gag reel and TV spots. Every aspect, right down to the hairstyling choices, is covered in exhaustive detail.
The sequels get commentaries and featurettes, too. The most interesting is the new retrospective on the Final Cut disc – it’s just 17 minutes of the cast and crew explaining why the film isn’t any good. You’ve got to admire the honesty, if nothing else. Sarah Dobbs
As if playing the Dawson’s Creek theme in the film wasn’t reference enough, Blanks called Josh Jackson “Pacey” on set.