Urban Legend

I’ve heard the claim that the character of Denise Hemsfield from Scream Queens was in some way based on Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine) from this movie.  Rewatching Urban Legend, I was surprised to find it had some rather striking similarities in terms of plot and characters to the show.  That said, however, I don’t want to spoil Scream Queens for anyone, so I would just say watch it for yourselves.

This is a movie that does have the rotten luck of being defined primarily in terms of its relationship to other movies.  On its own, it’s not good enough to praise, and not bad enough to mock.  But, its status as the most overtly meta post-Scream movie kind of makes it relevant in discussion of horror history, so it can’t just be forgotten either.

The ending of the movie throws what was or wasn’t real largely into question, revealing the plot of the movie itself to be another Urban Legend based loosely on true events.  That said, however, I find it somewhat hard to believe that a retold urban legend would contain the level of detail in a 90-minute movie, so where “reality” ends and legend begins I’m not sure.

We open with the classic Killer in the Back Seat, setting up the plot with the murder of Michelle (Natasha Gregson Wagner), a murder which deeply shakes our protagonist Natalie (Alicia Witt).  Natalie finds herself in the midst of a series of murders based on urban legends, and is teamed up with school reporter Paul (Jared Leto), who suspects they’re related to a killing spree on campus from 1973, of which Professor Wexler (Robert Englund) was the only survivor.

I’ve heard people say that this movie is no longer relevant, as none of these Urban Legends are widely believed in the day of the internet.  I strongly disagree, however.  Even in the movie, it’s clear most of the characters know that these stories have never happened before, and even the killer acknowledges that she’s likely the first person to ever actually attempt a kidney heist.  If anything, Snopes has created a world where everyone has at least heard these stories, even if they know them only as debunked.  I imagine that there were large chunks of the audience in the 90s who were unfamiliar with at least some of the references stories.

Eventually, we learn that the previous massacre was all a red herring.  Rather, Natalie’s friend Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) planned the entire thing as a revenge plot, with Wexler as the would-be patsy.  Natalie, as it turns out, had been in a car with Michelle when the latter attempted to scare some random stranger by reenacting the High Beams initiation myth, causing a crash and a death.  If the movie has one detail I suspect we were supposed to take as non-literal, it’s the suggestion that Natalie was the more innocent of the two, as the killer saved her for last, and she was apparently given the same sentence of probation as Michelle.

Rewatching this movie now, I think it’s imperfect, but deserves a watch.  This is a movie that has a sense of humor about itself, and I suspect everyone involved knew they were making a cut-rate Scream, and were okay with that fact.  The degree of character development is certainly less than Scream, but they weren’t really going for a deep character study.  You mostly get what you expect.

…oh, and Danielle Harris is in this…this is a good thing…because Danielle Harris is awesome.