OK, here’s a scenario to put yourself in: you’re being chased, and are holding a large, heavy, metal fire extinguisher. You can act like a sane person and save yourself by hitting the pursuer a few times with it, or you can act like Amy Mayfield in Urban Legends: Final Cut (Jennifer Morrison, Stir of Echoes, Miracle On 34th Street): drop the extinguisher and leave yourself defenceless.
This is just one of the many fixes Amy manages to get herself into while trying to direct her thesis movie, the final project for her last year at film school, which will also make her eligible for the aptly named Hitchcock Award. The plot line of Urban Legends: Final Cut, which is also the plot line of Amy’s movie, is about getting murdered as urban legends dictate. A great premise for Amy–until her production crew starts falling victim to said legends.
More than anything else, this movie seemed to be an extended short story, especially in the fashion of character development. Only the main character Amy was really developed beyond the point necessary to the plot. Everyone else was more or less just an extra, even the attacker. The movie was about Amy rather than Amy and her crew.
And what’s with the murderer dressing as a fencer? Does the mere thought of fencing strike cold fear into everybody’s hearts, make their hair stand on end? More likely, they used up all possible masks in the course of 30-plus years of horror movies and needed to resort to fencing masks. Before long, we’ll see movies where the murderer is hidden by Mulroney masks, or maybe a paper plate on a popsicle stick brightly decorated with glue, markers and sparkles.
Another reason this movie can’t be taken seriously is because every time Graham (Joseph Lawrence, Radioland Murders, Blossom) comes on screen, I couldn’t help but think, and sometimes say, "WHOA!" in the classic Joey voice. Joey, just because you elongate your name, doesn’t mean your career will follow. Go back to being an empty-headed teen heartthrob.
Of course, the saving grace of any horror movie is the special effects. In this case they were well done, albeit there weren’t any murders in broad daylight, so the darkness could very well have muffled any effect flaws.
Surprisingly, the soundtrack was kept in line to a point where you don’t even realize there is one. Generally, the soundtracks of teen-slasher movies are blasted with all the latest music and the CD is hyped as much as the movie.
All in all, this film was very much like your typical Hitchcock, but more like the television series than the films. Urban Legends: Final Cut is a suspenseful film and a good way to be entertained.
One last note of advice, guys: take your girl. She will cling to you for the duration of the movie.