September 24–October 1, 1998

movie shorts

Urban Legend

Jordan Catalano, the Noxema girl and that cute chick from Cybill (otherwise known as Jared Leto, Rebecca Gayheart and Alicia Witt) are only some of the TV-genic personalities taking up the big screen in this unambitious but dumbly enjoyable slash 'n' dash. (It's a good thing the actors in this new wave of teen horror movies aren't really being killed; otherwise Dawson's Creek would have to use sock puppets to fill out its cast.) With her frizzy red hair, the dangerously skinny Witt looks like a cellophane-wrapped toothpick, and her quiver-lipped performance in the Neve Campbell role is more pouty than terrified. Basically, the movie has two things going for it: Leto's intense, blue-eyed performance as a dogged college newspaper reporter, and more importantly, a great hook: college students are being murdered in ways that evoke urban legends, from the poodle in the microwave to the dangers of mixing Coke and Pop Rocks. It's a particularly apt gimmick because horror movies themselves aren't that different from urban legends—the same ominous predictability, the same moralistic hooks. Although it obviously shares DNA with I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, Urban Legend has enough winky humor to distract from its silly plot. With John Neville, Brad Dourif, and Robert Englund.

—Sam Adams