Did ya hear? Urban Legends In Film "Did you hear about that kid Mikey, from Life Cereal?  He was eating Pop-Rocks and drinking Coke and his head exploded!" How many times have you heard this?  Know why? It's what folklore has been bastardized into in this country.  Stories like this are called "Urban Legends". There's a million of 'em.  And some have weaseled their way into the movie industry.

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First, let's look at some movies that are based on urban legend:  

	Last House On The Left A Wes Craven classic.  Gut-wrenching in its reality, two girlfriends get kidnapped at a concert -- but end up being taken to a house only a few yards away from where one of the girls lives!  The ending brings justice to Krug's gang, a la "I Spit On Your Grave".  A must-see for cult-a-holics.
I Know What You Did Last Summer Breakthrough film for Sarah Michelle "Buffy" Gellar and Jennifer-Love "Party Of Five" Hewett.  A band of partying teens in a one-horse town--after discussing the reality behind urban legends--run down a drunk pedestrian.  Instead of turning themselves in, they dump the body in the water and agree never to talk about it again. . .until a year later somone reminds them that "I know what you did last summer".  A little thin, but well cast.
	When A Stranger Calls A classic urban legend, with a babysitter getting threatening phone calls to the point of calling the police -- who inform her that the calls are coming from inside the house.  Not gory, which makes it that much more scary.

Of course, some movies have actually become urban legends themselves.  Check this out:  

Three Men And A Baby This one was *huge* when I was in high-school. . .during the scene where Jack's mother comes over, there's a figure in the window that, according to rumor, is the ghost of a boy who was shot and killed in the apartment where this movie was filmed.  No matter how much I tried to explain that movies are filmed on sound stages, no one wanted to hear me.  It's actually a cardboard cutout of Jack -- a prop that actually shows up later in the movie.
	The Wizard Of Oz Is nothing sacred?  Rumors of someone committing suicide on the set surfaced a while ago, and you can even "see" him hang himself after the Wizard-Seekers' first encounter with the Wicked Witch.  I've seen the sequence.  Simply put:  No. I don't know what it is, but it's not someone hanging themself.
Faces Of Death Sorry, it was unavoidable.  Probably more notorious for the fact that 98% of what is displayed as "documentary" is complete and utter crap than for its blood-and-guts, this series of movies has gotten a cult following like none other.  Rumor had it that the host kills himself, live on the air, at the end of the final installment.  Buy the boxed set an decide for yourself.	Can you believe I couldn't come up with a picture?

Urban Legends seem to follow Disney films around -- dig this:  

	The Lion King Okay, so the underlying theme here is that Disney pisses off their animators to the point where the put very "adult" references in all of their movies.  In this one, Simba blows dust off a mountainside, briefly spelling the word "SEX" in the sky with the dust particles. I must admit -- I'm convinced.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? While not technically a Disney movie, it was distributed by Buena Vista, which is close enough for me.  This movie carried several stories in the rumor mill, including Donald Duck using a racial slur during his piano duel with Daffy Duck -- but the most famous is, no-doubt, the Jessica Rabbit "Crotch Shot" as she and Eddie are tossed out of the cab. Yep -- convinced again.
	Aladdin It's no rumor that Robin Williams saved this film, but. . . When Aladdin climbs the balcony and gets confronted by the tiger, he supposedly says "Take off your clothes!"  To a tiger?  The lyric sheet and the script both say "Take off and go!"  To a tiger? I'm on the fence with this one. . .you decide.

Two big films this year will focus on urban legends. . .Dead Man On Campus, which was released in July, covers the ever-famous "if-your-college-roommate-dies-you-get-straight-As" legend in a campy, humorous kind of setting that seems to be desperately trying to be an "Animal House"-ish romp (I haven't seen it yet).  The one I'm waiting for is, appropriately, Urban Legend, in which a college student (played by "Cybill"'s Allicia Witt, but I'm going to see it anyway) who's studying urban legends gets wrapped in the middle of a murder spree in which the killer is acting out the very legends she's studying.  Urban Legends opens September 25th.  See you there!