URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT (2000)
Directed by John Ottman
Starring Jennifer Morrison and Matthew Davis
The worst horror film so far of the new millennia, "Urban Legends: Final Cut" opens up with what looks like a pretty interesting scene: a slasher on an airplane, killing off pilots and then going after passengers.
In a what can only be called a war crime against the entire horror movie genre, screenwriters Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson have the opening murder actually be a scene from a movie that’s being filmed—one that’s being shot by film students at a fictional university.
How film students ever got their hands on a set that looks like a modern airplane is way beyond me. Having a shocking opening scene in a horror film, then telling us it’s actually a movie within a movie, is one of the oldest—and lamest tricks in the book. It was done in "Pet Semetary 2," also a terrible sequel.
One of the only good things about the first "Urban Legend" was its very strong opening scene. Why would the makers of this even consider opening it in this way?
"Urban Legends: Final Cut" only strong moment is a scene where a film student wakes up in a tub of ice to find that her kidney’s been cut out. But things quickly devolve after it. Another film student is murdered by having his head bashed with a camera lens. The victim is actually a very big man, so how he was overpowered by a camera-lens-wielding maniac is, once again, beyond me.
I could go on and on and on and on about how terrible this film is. The ending is basically right out of a "Scooby Doo" episode. What’s worse—it is never explained why the killer chose to revolve some of the murders around urban legends. There is absolutely no motive for this.
Another lame-ass cliché direct from a soap opera: A "twin" of one of the dead characters shows up. I guess we’re supposed to suspect he’s the killer. Sheesh. This film is so bad, it’s actually amazing. If anyone at Sony (the giant corporation that released it) so much as even implies that this film’s impending financial failure is evidence the horror genre is dead, that person is a frigging idiot. This film is a failure because it sucks, plain and simple. It sucks—and somebody’s responsible!
Whew! In short, don’t see this movie.