The Film (2/5)

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “film” as -just kidding, I’m not really going there. For folks like me who were fans of the 1998 slasher Urban Legend, the prospect of a sequel was certainly welcome. And because we all hadn’t died from the Y2K virus, the year 2000 wasn’t too late for most of us to have lost interest in the burgeoning franchise. Then Urban Legends: Final Cut came out and we all just wanted to rewatch the first one again or cry.

This time around, the slashing takes place at a prestigious (Canadian) film school. The final projects for a group of students are coming up and they’re all in a panic because the highly sought-after Hitchcock Award is at stake. I think there’s a cash prize as well or maybe a lifetime all-you-care-to-eat pass to Golden Corral. Do they even have a Golden Corral in Ontario? The details are kind of fuzzy but the award is so distinguished that someone is willing to kill for it.

Plucky film student Amy (Jennifer Morrison) decides on the horror genre for her project but unfortunately casts her goofball/actress pal Sandra (Jessica Cauffiel) in the lead. While watching the dailies of their abysmal first day of shooting, someone switches the reels and a real snuff film starring Sandra begins. I hope you’re paying attention because this is the most (or maybe only) effective scene in the film. As more of her classmates turn up dead, Amy moves back home and transfers to her local community college. The end.

Audio Video (3/5)

Scream Factory’s release of Urban Legends: Final Cut is pretty nice. As usual, they treat a less than beloved sequel with love and get it looking as good as it can possibly be for the home video market. The 2.35:1 print looks very good. The sound on this disc is pretty frickin’ loud. I had trouble hearing the dialog over the booming sound effects and music score. There’s a choice between 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo but neither one provided much help. I probably just needed to stop being a wimp and crank it up, bro.

Extras (4/5)

There’s a bunch of satisfying extras on this disc. First up is a fun all new featurette with cast and crew where the consensus is “well, we messed up” and “hey, it turned out pretty okay all things considered”. I enjoyed that one a lot but now I think the scariest thing about this movie is studio interference and disastrous test screenings. Director John Ottman (who also has co-editor and co-composer credits on this film) provides a fact-filled though not very engaging commentary track. There’s a really fun interview with Jessica Cauffiel who looks back on working on this film very fondly. There are a handful of deleted scenes, an old “making of” featurette from the original DVD, a gag reel, and a hilariously dated original trailer.

Overall

The early 2000s were a weird time for North American horror films and the ones from the year 2000 seem even more dated and odd to me now. It felt like filmmakers were too actively aware of the new millennium and were searching for a signature style to separate their work from the 1990s. That was not always a bad thing. After the surprise success of the first Urban Legend, these particular filmmakers forgot to keep searching and decided to be generic instead. Scream made it okay for slashers to be completely self-referential and this idea certainly wasn’t lost on this crew. I will make one more Scream franchise reference before this review is over.

I think that time has been rather kind to Urban Legends: Final Cut; though to be completely honest, it took my bottom-of-the-barrel (and below) expectations to get me here. I had a great time with it but my eyes are still rolling from the corny and wildly obvious film references jammed into this thing. These nods to classic cinema made the filmmakers feel smart but they made me feel dumb. The snuff film angle is introduced and then immediately abandoned. I guess 8MM didn’t gross enough the previous year to inspire the screenwriters.

I’m glad that they tried to jam an actual urban legend into the film but it’s too little, too late. They should’ve stuck to this theme instead of the film school bits because they managed to remind me of Scream 3. And I love Scream 3, which should explain everything about me as a film reviewer. Essential slasher sequel requirements such as more comic relief characters, extra gore effects, and paltry connections to the original film (including returning cast cameos) are pluses. I also appreciated the parody of the first Final Destination film in the opening scene. Well, I hope it was a parody.