| Urban Legends: Final Cut | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Ottman |
| Written by | |
| Based on | Urban Legend bySilvio Horta |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Brian Pearson |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | John Ottman |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $14 million[4] |
| Box office | $38.6 million[4] |
Urban Legends: Final Cut is a 2000slasher film directed byJohn Ottman in his directorial debut, and starringJennifer Morrison,Matthew Davis,Hart Bochner,Joseph Lawrence,Anthony Anderson, andLoretta Devine. In addition to directing, Ottman also edited the film and composed its score. A sequel toUrban Legend (1998), it is the second installment in theUrban Legend film series. It follows a film student being stalked by a serial killer in afencing mask, who begins murdering the crew members of herthesis film abouturban legends.
Filmed in late 1999,Urban Legends: Final Cut was theatrically released in the United States on September 22, 2000, byColumbia Pictures. Although it made only roughly half of its predecessor's gross, it was still successful, grossing $38.6 million on a budget of $14 million. The film was universally panned by critics upon release, and was followed by thedirect-to-video sequelUrban Legends: Bloody Mary in 2005.
After conversing with security guard Reese Wilson about a murder spree that happened on the campus where she had previously worked,[a] Amy Mayfield, a student at prestigious film school Alpine University, is inspired to make her thesis film about a serial killer murdering in the fashion of urban legends. Meanwhile, fellow student Lisa has a drink with classmate Travis Stark at a bar before her flight. Starting to feel dazed, she is attacked and awakens in a bathtub filled with ice, discovering that her kidney has been removed. Attacked by her abductor, she tries to flee through the window, but is decapitated.
The next day, Amy is preparing to shoot her film but the assigned camera man, Toby Belcher, quits and accuses her of stealing his thesis idea. When Sandra Petruzzi, Amy's actress friend who played a victim in a scene, returns to an empty studio after forgetting her keys, she is killed with a straight razor. Her peers witness herfilmed death when the material is smuggled into a sequence of takes of the scene. Amy is disturbed by it, but her peers discount it as part of ashowreel.
Travis is said to have committed suicide in the campus tower. At his funeral, Graham Manning, the son of a Hollywood director, offers to help Amy with her film; when she declines, he reveals that her father was a famous documentarian, which she has concealed from most of their peers. Afterwards, Travis' twin brother, Trevor, shares his belief that his brother was murdered. Later, while Amy is recordingaudio loops of screams for the film, the killer, wearing afencing mask, fatally beats replacement cameraman Simon Jabuscko outside with his own camera, and the audio is inadvertently recorded. He then attacks and chases her through the campus but she evades him.
Before the filming of another scene in an empty carnival ride, sophomores Stan Washington and Dirk Reynolds are attacked and electrocuted while preparing the set. Amy discovers the corpses, escapes a confrontation with the killer, and informs the police, who attribute the deaths to accidental electrocution. Trevor comforts Amy, and during their period of sexual intercourse, he suddenly stabs her. She awakens, realizing that it was only a dream, but then notices a light inside the bell tower. When Amy arrives there, her friend Vanessa Valdeon presents a note addressed to her that Amy supposedly wrote expressing romantic feelings for Vanessa, but Amy denies writing the note. The killer startles them and pursues them after Amy presses apanic button. Once upstairs, the 2 girls hide in a closet, but the killer discovers them, grabs Vanessa and locks Amy in. Trying to get out, she discovers the corpses of Simon and Sandra. Managing to break down the door, she finds Vanessa's corpse hanging from the bell. Amy runs out passing Reese, who was notified of the disturbance via the campus security system.
Trevor tells Amy all the victims worked on Travis' thesis film. After watching some footage, they suspect Toby, the only person who worked on the film that is still alive, kidnap him, and summon Professor Solomon to an empty film set to present their suspicions. However, Toby reveals that he never went anywhere near Travis' film. Graham encounters the confrontation, and in the confusion, Solomon reveals himself as the killer, attempting to frame Amy and usurp the Hitchcock Award – which includes a largestipend – by presenting Travis' film as his own. In the ensuing melee, Amy wrestles his gun from him and holds him at gunpoint. Reese stumbles upon the scene, and a standoff occurs. Solomon leaps at Amy, who discharges the gun in his abdomen.
At the Hitchcock Awards ceremony a few months later, Trevor attends to accept the award on his brother's behalf. As he goes onstage, Reese shoots production assistant Kevin, who appears as a sniper in the rafters. The altercation is revealed to be a scene in Amy's new film,Urban Legends, on which Toby and Graham are working on her behalf. Later, Solomon, now using a wheelchair, is in a mental institution where, after he watches Amy's film, a nurse (Brenda Bates, from the original film) asks him if he enjoyed the movie. She wheels him out, explaining that they have a lot in common.
The screenplay forUrban Legends: Final Cut was written byPaul Harris Boardman andScott Derrickson.[6] Ottman sought a "wacky" tone for the film that was moretongue-in-cheek than that of its predecessor.[7]
Anson Mount originally auditioned for the dual role of Travis / Trevor Stark, but had wanted to play the role of the antagonistic Toby instead; according to Ottman, he "aced" his audition for Toby, and was cast in the role.[8] Matthew Davis auditioned for the role of Travis / Trevor, and was cast, marking his first major film role.[9] Eva Mendes was cast in the role of Vanessa, which had originally been a smaller role, but was expanded to allow her character to be a potentialred herring.[10]
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Principal photography took place inToronto, Ontario, Canada[11] over a period of 47 days[12] in the fall of 1999.[13] The film's opening sequence on the airplane, which was shot over a period of three days,[14] was originally written to have occurred on a boat; however, the script was altered last-minute after the production crew came across an airplane set from the filmPushing Tin (1999).[15] Due to the film's low budget, director Ottman chose to make use of the set, and staged the sequence on a plane instead.[15]
The university exteriors featured in the film isTrent University inPeterborough, Ontario, which Ottman chose due to itsmodern architecture as opposed toGothic.[16] The bell tower, however, was constructed solely for the film, for $150,000.[17] Interior sequences, however, were filmed in Toronto.[18] The amusement parkOntario Place served as the filming location for the mining amusement ride sequence; the mine ride featured in the film was in fact alog ride that had been drained of its water for the impending winter months, which was re-dressed to appear as a mine-themed ride.[19] Ottman stated that many of the lighting techniques featured in the film – particularly the use of strobe lighting – were inspired byRidley Scott'sAlien (1979) andJames Cameron'sAliens (1986).[20]
The sequence featuring Lisa and Trevor at the bar, followed by her death scene, was written and shot inLos Angeles after principal photography had finished, as the film's producers felt the film needed a death sequence earlier on to establish a sense of danger.[21] Originally, the production crew intended to make a fakekidney for the sequence (as the character awakens to find her kidney has been removed), but due to budget and time restraints, opted to use agoat's kidney from a butcher shop.[22] Because a goat kidney is anatomically larger than that of a human, it had to be truncated to reduce its size.[22]
Director Ottman also edited the film, and remarked in theaudio commentary on the film's 2001 DVD release that many character interaction sequences were truncated or excised entirely to maintain a quicker pace.[23]
With the plot centered on a group of film school students,Urban Legends: Final Cut uses aself-reflexive narrative approach[24] and features numerous references andallusions to cinema and other horror films.[25] The opening sequence on the airplane was inspired by theTwilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963).[26] Lisa's abduction sequence in which she is incapacitated with a plastic garment bag in a coat closet is an homage toBlack Christmas (1974).[b]
Film scholar Jim Harper, in his bookLegacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies (2004), citesUrban Legends: Final Cut as a "postScream slasher" influenced by Italiangiallo films, featuring a "distinctArgento influence" present in the film, particularly in its killer's attire.[28] Harper also notes direct references in the film to the work ofAlfred Hitchcock as well asMichael Powell'sPeeping Tom (1960), which is paid homage in Sandra's filmed murder scene.[29]
The following urban legends are mentioned or depicted in the film:
Urban Legends: Final Cut was released onDVD by Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment on February 16, 2001.[36] In July 2018, it was announced thatScream Factory would release the film onBlu-ray. It was released on November 20, 2018.[37]
The film brought in $21.4 million in the United States and brought in $17.1 million overseas, bringing its total box office revenue to $38.5 million. The film was considered a moderate success, due to the budget of the film being $14 million. However, the film only grossed about half of what the first film brought in ($72.5 million). Although it did manage to top the box office in its opening weekend, something its predecessor failed to do.[4]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 11% of 85 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "This teen horror movie brings nothing new to an already exhausted genre. And it's bad. Really bad."[38]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 16 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[39] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale.[40][better source needed]
Dave Kehr ofThe New York Times wrote of the film: "[Director] Ottman doesn't have the firm grasp of tone necessary to make his deliberate ambiguities seem other than simple confusion, nor the sense of humor necessary to turn the deliberate cliches into effective satire."[6] Robert Koehler ofVariety criticized the film's screenplay for being "[too] stuffed with movie references and jokes," and that it "slavishly follows in lock-step with the prior film'sTen Little Indians-like plot line."[5] Writing for theLos Angeles Times, David Chute wrote: "The coolest single element in the walk-don't-run horror sequelUrban Legends: Final Cut may be its atmospheric setting...[the] concept seems tailor-made for that kind of ingenuity, for a little bit of sly wit and playfulness. Movies likeFinal Cut are bunker-mentality productions, safe, square and purely functional, like buildings made from poured concrete."[41]
Roger Ebert awarded it two stars out of four, declaring that the movie "makes the fatal mistake... of believing there is still life in the wheezy serial-killer-on-campus formula," although he did concede that the production credits were "slick" and the performances "quite adequate given the (narrow) opportunities of the genre."[42] TheBBC echoed this in a review by Michael Thomson, who thought that themeta in-jokes of the murder scenes did not work and that the film "keeps the mediocrity [of the first film] alive as it unleashes yet more unsavoury nonsense."[43]The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin echoed similar sentiments, writing: "A sequel with the misguided chutzpah to rip off its derivative predecessor,Final Cut proves once again that the self-referential slasher film is every bit as tiresome and devoid of new ideas as the unironic bloodbaths that inspired it in the first place."[44]
Urban Legends: Final Cut was nominated forSaturn Award as the Best Horror Film,[45][46] and wonTeen Choice Award in the Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller category.[47]
A sequel titledUrban Legends: Bloody Mary was released in 2005.
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