URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT

by Tom Meek

Have you heard the one about the guy -- or is it a girl? -- who's lulled into a drunken one-night stand with a stranger and awakens the next day in a bathtub full of ice to discover that a kidney has been surgically removed?

Urban Legends: Final Cut, takes the premise of its 1998 predecessor -- killings on a college campus that mimic well-known urban legends -- and cranks it up a postmodernist notch or two. This time it's the film department of a college campus that's suffering the casualties, as star senior Amy Mayfield (Jennifer Morrison) comes up with the bright idea of making a movie about a college campus victimized by urban-legend-inspired murders only to have members of her cast and crew fall victim to the same. First-time director John Ottman shows some cinema savvy in his allusions to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and other classics (Amy is out to win the school's "Hitchcock" prize) but can't resist settling into the usual Scream routines and hopelessly convoluted plotting. Despite a funny, self-reflexive finale and a feisty pair of f/x weenies, Final Cut is not what becomes a legend most.