Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)

Released in 2000, "Urban Legends: Final Cut" details the events of a university in the NE USA where a mad killer starts murdering students of the film school. Jennifer Morrison plays the main protagonist who teams up with a student played by Matthew Davis to solve the murders. Loretta Devine returns as Reese, the security guard at the university. Other students are played by Jessica Cauffiel, Eva Mendes, Anthony Anderson, Michael Bacall, Marco Hofschneider, Joey Lawrence and Anson Mount. Hart Bochner is on hand as a professor.

While this is the sequel to 1998's "Urban Legend," Reese is the only character that returns (with another surprise re-appearance). Like the first film, this one takes place at a NE university and involves a killer who imitates various urban legends. The big difference is the focus on a group of film school students and their endeavors competing for a coveted film award that would open doors for future Hollywood success. This is the only movie I've seen that deals with film school and I found it interesting and even informative. Whereas this angle is original and the cast is good, the story's only fairly engaging. It's rarely horrifying and sometimes downright cartoony, although thankfully not as bad as the first film in this regard. The slasher's costume this time isn't a hooded parka, but rather a fencer's mask and hooded cloak (rolling my eyes).

The cast is highlighted by the attractive Jennifer Morrison, who's just as good as Alicia Witt in the first movie and arguably better. Jessica Cauffiel is another highlight, but her role's too short. Unfortunately, Eva Mendes' obnoxious lesbian character detracts (Eva is fine but her character, as written, is unattractive, although she becomes less obnoxious as the story progresses). Almost the entire film takes place on an isolated university campus, shot at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada, NE of Toronto, which is where some scenes in the first film where shot. The exception is a long carnival sequence in the second act shot at a Toronto amusement park.

I've watched "Urban Legends: Final Cut" three times now and my appreciation has increased with each viewing. While the climax is cartoonish and overlong, like the first movie, the picture's worthwhile for the Scooby Doo-ish elements and the film school angle, plus the quality cast, particularly Jennifer Morrison and Marco Hofschneider.

The film runs 97 minutes.

GRADE: B- (6.5/10)

Fmovies: Music composer John Ottman and editor for Bryan Singer films, tries his hand at directing and does a reasonable job with this entertaining derivative meta slasher. The slashings and goings on take place at the most prestigious and unrealistic film school imaginable and a fencing masked killer is wiping out one film student after another. The whole film is exceptionally dumb and doesn't really have anything to do with urban legends, with the exception of a tacked on waking up in a bathtub missing a kidney scene, but Jennifer Morrison is cute and does a good job with this material. None of the deaths are memorable, but the film has a cheesy playful side that knows it's B material and Ottman runs with it.

A film that can generate the most fiendish criticisms of all time, such as "pure crap" and "worst film ever made" etc etc, yet still manage to actually entertain some people, not because it is "so bad it's good" but because it is actually quite good must be hiding something from most of its audience.

Basically, I think very few people "get" this film.

In years to come this will be remembered as quite a well done little slasher flick, and will garner the kind of cult status that films like April Fool's Day and Prom Night achieved.

Urban Legends: Final Cut fmovies. I liked the original "Urban Legend" and I liked this one to. It has some suspense, and pretty much does what it's supposed to do. Another thing that I liked about this was that it didn't bring back the killer from the first film. It showed some originality by setting a "sequel" in a different location and dealing with, mainly, a different cast. My rating for both "Urban Legend" and "Urban Legends: Final Cut": 8/10

"Urban Legends: Final Cut" is about as good or as bad as you'd expect it to be. A sequel to 1998's teen-slasher flick, "Urban Legend," your enjoyment of this film is hinged solely on how you view the original. Personally, I felt the first movie was kind of flat and dull. Some interesting elements, but overall, not the best of the late 90's slasher craze. Enter "Final Cut." This film, on the other hand, is a solid little slasher with a similar mindset to that of the 80's slasher era. It hardly has the smarmy, self-referential winks to the camera that it's peers in "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" had and despite some flaws, is a fun way to burn a couple of hours.

Directed by John Ottman – who is primarily known for his work as a composer – and featuring a surprisingly extensive cast that includes Hart Bochner, Eva Mendes, Anthony Anderson and Joseph "Whoa!" Lawrence, this legend revolves around a film school where students are competing for a prestigious award. The Hitchcock award, to be exact. When innocent Amy Mayfield (Jennifer Morrison) decides to make a movie loosely based on the events of the first film, her crew finds themselves slowly being picked off one by one by a killer sporting perhaps some of the most ridiculous garbs yet: a fencing mask and a black rubber slicker. As in the first, he uses a few classic urban legends to accommodate his dirty deeds, but like most villains in sequels, he gets lazy and some of his kills are just straight-forward and messy.

Surprisingly grisly and gory (especially in the case of the first victim, who had no relevance to the rest of the film to begin with), "Final Cut" is more cheap fun than anything. Although Ottman puts on a good show, his references to Hitchcock himself hardly mean that there is any genuine suspense to be found here. Instead, like the movies it subtly pays homage to – such as "Friday The 13th" and "My Bloody Valentine" – this little sequel is simply a fun, down and dirty little romp that forgets it's a sequel and goes for the gusto. It's not an amazing film by any stretch of the imagination, but far less pretentious than other films of it's era, and certainly a mind-numbing good time for genre fans who aren't afraid to slum it a little bit with fare such as this. Fun to sit down with a beer and a pizza, nothing worth taking too seriously, and certainly better than the first flick.

I have to ask myself why did I even rent this... an ex-girlfriend recommended it so maybe it was all some sort of revenge...

Actually I really liked scream 3 so I was a bit hopeful in watching this but my hopes were mangled much like a fragile monarch butterfly caught in a lawnmower. The story was just horrible; it made no sense just a stream of unconnected gore scenes that don't build tension or suspense. The Characters aren't even amusing stereotypes, and not that the actors had much to work with in the first place.

The central problem with movies like this...without good characters the movie drags, the gore scenes become meaningless and we don't care who lives and who dies.

The stolen kidney death scene was nice and brutal, and the campus where it was filmed was really cool, that's about it on the good points.