Night Six - Urban Legend
I hadn't seen nor heard much about Urban Legend till tonight so I didn't really know what to expect from it. All I knew was that queen Rebecca Gayheart was in it.
On the opening of the film, I loved it! It got straight into the swing of things and didn't waste no time. I think horror movies are definitely one genre of film that needs to try and keep their audiences engaged from the start. I think their was great suspense in the opening throughout and I loved how the director lead the viewer into a false sense of security after you believe Michelle could be safe after escaping from the gas station only to be brutally murdered in her car.
Another clever point about the film was that clearly the producers never forgot to link it back to its theme of urban legends. In the film there were constant mentions to urban legends casually and subtly placed in. Such as Sasha's talk show which had numerous mentions to urban legends (e.g. the birth control pills being swapped with aspirin) and later on the extra in the film mentioning to Sasha the legend of the song 'Rollercoaster of love' being a real scream played in the song. It never forgot its roots and what the film was all about and I really liked this aspect of the movie.
Regards to the characters in the movie I mostly liked all of them and found most easy to make a connection with as a viewer. I liked Paul's slow progression from being a bit of an antagonist in the movie to becoming one of the main heroes and I think Jared Leto portrayed both sides of Paul's character well. I also liked how Parker and Paul switched roles also from being good guy to bad guy in the movie. Brenda was my favourite character throughout the film though. I probably was slightly biased before I watched as I already love Rebecca Gayheart from her role in 'Jawbreaker' (starring Rose McGowan). I loved her bubbly nature and naivety and found her to be the most likeable character.
The death scenes were good as they were all different. They didn't feel repetitive. However, I do feel that most of the death scenes (excluding Michelle and Sasha's) didn't have much build up or suspense to them. You would just see the killer approach from nowhere and kill them almost immediately with no struggle from the other character. That's only a minor issues but I have on numerous occasions in this thread expressed my love for a chase scene so I would have liked to have seen more in the film. The death scenes however were creepy and the killer was creepy herself so I do have to congratulate them on this.
Moving onto the reveal, I honestly had no idea who the killer was. For a while I thought the principal then changed my mind to Paul but I never ever would've even considered Brenda! I think it was really clever how the directors linked Natalie's backstory of the crash and Brenda's boyfriend being the one who they flashed and subsequently caused his death. Her final scene was tense and dramatic and much like scream I loved the element of breaking the fourth wall in the car were Paul turned to Natalie and asked what was the final twist going to be before Brenda appeared dramatically from the back seat only to (seemingly) plunge to her death. Again I liked the ending with Brenda sat in college (great setting by the way the college looked SO creepy) about to tell her story about her killing spree.
Overall - 9/10
A really underrated film which I really enjoyed and loved the theme and idea behind it.
Score:
Scream -
10/10
Scream 2 -
9/10
Urban Legend -
9/10
House Of Wax -
8/10
I Know What You Did Last Summer -
6/10
Friday the 13th -
2/10