Once upon a time, there was a movie called Scream. It was tremendously successful, because it was not only a horror movie, but it was also deliberately clever and poked fun at the horror genre.
Unfortunately, it seems that the movie industry has missed the main point of Scream, which was to mock the gratuitous violence and stale formula of most horror movies. Rather, film directors seem to have taken Scream as the Bible for movie-making, and dozens of knock-offs have followed. We had I Know What You Did Last Summer, we had Urban Legends, we even had I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Not to mention Screams 2 and 3.
And now, we have Urban Legends: Final Cut. It’s hard to say why they made this movie; after all, the first Urban Legends was the least known and least successful in the teen horror genre. Nevertheless, first-time director John Ottman (who has previously done editing and scoring work on The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil) saw fit to deliver this latest bland installment in the Urban Legends chronicle.
The plot — what little of it there is — centers around film student Amy Mayfield (Jennifer Morrison). Amy is making a horror movie based on urban legends for her thesis project at the prestigious film school she attends. This film-within-a-film idea has the potential to make this movie somewhat interesting, but the dismal acting and script make this gore-fest fall far short of other recent horror films.
Needless to say, much violence ensues as Amy begins work on her film. The slayings start with the grisly decapitation of a young girl, who the scriptwriters must have soon forgotten about, since she is never found or even noticed missing. Not throughout the entire movie is she ever mentioned again, and the fact that she’s gone doesn’t seem too important even when all the other murders start happening. As the movie progresses, Amy’s film crew slowly dies, and she makes some half-assed attempts to discover the killer’s identity, together with friend Trevor (Matthew Davis).
The entire movie is so full of holes and inconsistencies that it would be impossible to list them all here, so suffice it to say that nothing about the characters’ actions and motivations ever makes sense. Throughout most of the movie, despite the fact that people are dropping dead left and right, nobody notices that anything is wrong except for Amy. At times you just want to slap either the writers for dreaming up this dredge, or yourself for going to see it. And the climactic scene, with the ultimate unmasking of the killer, is only surprising because it doesn’t add up whatsoever when you think about what has already happened.
In addition, nothing in the movie is very scary at all. The scenes take place in typical over-exaggerated horror sets, with plenty of shadows and strange-looking obstacles for the heroine to throw in the killer’s path. Most of the “scares” come in the form of having things that aren’t really scary pop out in a vaguely scary way, accompanied by supposedly scary music.
Of course, there’s the obligatory bloods and guts, but even that isn’t nearly as explicit as the gore in other horror flicks. It’s as if this is a toned-down amalgamation of all the other horror movies out there.
The acting is also worth comment here: it’s awful. Not a single one of these actors or actresses is well-known, and based on these performances I doubt they’ll becoming famous anytime soon.
In all fairness, though, the writing doesn’t help the actors much. They’re required to deliver some truly terrible lines, and they hold their own as well as possible when faced with a script this bad. When one character is facing almost-suicidal grief, Amy delivers the hollow comfort, “Everything’ll be okay,” followed by a strong smile. How compelling.
Nothing in Final Cut makes it worth watching. The few jokes fall flat, which is disappointing since this movie is obviously trying to recapture the wit of Scream. Perhaps this movie can best be summed up by one of the film students, played by Anson Mount, who says of a fellow student, “That woman’s acting would be dreadful in a porno film.” Hmmm. A porno, huh? Maybe that’s what Ottman’s next project should be. Let’s just hope his script is better.Once upon a time, there was a movie called Scream. It was tremendously successful, because it was not only a horror movie, but it was also deliberately clever and poked fun at the horror genre.
Unfortunately, it seems that the movie industry has missed the main point of Scream, which was to mock the gratuitous violence and stale formula of most horror movies. Rather, film directors seem to have taken Scream as the Bible for movie-making, and dozens of knock-offs have followed. We had I Know What You Did Last Summer, we had Urban Legends, we even had I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Not to mention Screams 2 and 3.
And now, we have Urban Legends: Final Cut. It’s hard to say why they made this movie; after all, the first Urban Legends was the least known and least successful in the teen horror genre. Nevertheless, first-time director John Ottman (who has previously done editing and scoring work on The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil) saw fit to deliver this latest bland installment in the Urban Legends chronicle.
The plot — what little of it there is — centers around film student Amy Mayfield (Jennifer Morrison). Amy is making a horror movie based on urban legends for her thesis project at the prestigious film school she attends. This film-within-a-film idea has the potential to make this movie somewhat interesting, but the dismal acting and script make this gore-fest fall far short of other recent horror films.
Needless to say, much violence ensues as Amy begins work on her film. The slayings start with the grisly decapitation of a young girl, who the scriptwriters must have soon forgotten about, since she is never found or even noticed missing. Not throughout the entire movie is she ever mentioned again, and the fact that she’s gone doesn’t seem too important even when all the other murders start happening. As the movie progresses, Amy’s film crew slowly dies, and she makes some half-assed attempts to discover the killer’s identity, together with friend Trevor (Matthew Davis).
The entire movie is so full of holes and inconsistencies that it would be impossible to list them all here, so suffice it to say that nothing about the characters’ actions and motivations ever makes sense. Throughout most of the movie, despite the fact that people are dropping dead left and right, nobody notices that anything is wrong except for Amy. At times you just want to slap either the writers for dreaming up this dredge, or yourself for going to see it. And the climactic scene, with the ultimate unmasking of the killer, is only surprising because it doesn’t add up whatsoever when you think about what has already happened.
In addition, nothing in the movie is very scary at all. The scenes take place in typical over-exaggerated horror sets, with plenty of shadows and strange-looking obstacles for the heroine to throw in the killer’s path. Most of the “scares” come in the form of having things that aren’t really scary pop out in a vaguely scary way, accompanied by supposedly scary music.
Of course, there’s the obligatory bloods and guts, but even that isn’t nearly as explicit as the gore in other horror flicks. It’s as if this is a toned-down amalgamation of all the other horror movies out there.
The acting is also worth comment here: it’s awful. Not a single one of these actors or actresses is well-known, and based on these performances I doubt they’ll becoming famous anytime soon.
In all fairness, though, the writing doesn’t help the actors much. They’re required to deliver some truly terrible lines,
and they hold their own as well as possible when faced with a script this bad. When one character is facing almost-suicidal grief, Amy delivers the hollow comfort, “Everything’ll be okay,” followed by a strong smile. How compelling.
Nothing in Final Cut makes it worth watching. The few jokes fall flat, which is disappointing since this movie is obviously trying to recapture the wit of Scream. Perhaps this movie can best be summed up by one of the film students, played by Anson Mount, who says of a fellow student, “That woman’s acting would be dreadful in a porno film.” Hmmm. A porno, huh? Maybe that’s what Ottman’s next project should be. Let’s just hope his script is better.
Archived article by Ed Howard