Urban Legend (1998, R)

As reviewed by James Brundage

Movies are like murder laws. It's a question of intent. If you meant to kill them, it's murder 2. You planned it, it's murder 1. If it was an accident, you get manslaughter. If you got a dark comedy and you came for a horror movie, you're disappointed. You got a drama and you came for a comedy, you're disappointed. Sometimes.

Myself, I like it when it's differrent from my expecations. It's because I like change in general. When it's differrent, I'll take it. I took Urban Legend (like a pill with some water), and liked it enough to see it once and at a Halloween party if my girlfriend drags me, but don't really care to see it again.

The movie, which has the same plot as every single psychokiller movie except this time they're knocking 'em off with urban legends, would have never been good if it weren't for the saving grace of a comic element. It has to be intentional, in my mind, because the places it was put in are so ridculous that they have to be plotted. You can't be that good by accident.

It has things in it like the person from Dawson's Creek yelling "Oh, God" when "I Don't Want to Wait" by Paula Cole blasts on the radio by accident, the song "Turn Around" on in the background as the girl is about to get her head chopped off, and a killer that will keep you smiling for days. It has more freaks than a circus show, but they're fun to watch.

And, like everything else on the face of the Earth, I have a philosophy about fun, too. Let it happen. Forget plot holes when its fun. Forgive murder when its fun. And, most important, have fun when its fun.