In this series of slasher films, good looking college kids are menaced by a killer who sets up elaborate murders that mimic well known Urban legends. Starting in 1998, with a star studded cast and the influence of the popularity of films like Scream, the series spawned an unnoticed second theatrical release and third direct-to-video installment.

Read on below for a guide to these films, or watch the video above for a review of all the films.

Urban Legend (1998)

Urban Legend plays with the trope of menaced teens being killed off one by one, by setting itself on a beautiful New England college campus, rather than the classic high school or teenage protagonists. The location of this film is something I really like about this movie, it’s a beautiful campus, giving the whole a bit of a dark academia vibe, arguably. This film was, directed by Jamie Blanks and the screenplay was by Silvio Horta, who is more well known for adapting Ugly Betty for an American audience. It stars Alicia Witt as our beautiful, wide eyed, much beleaguered main character, who is joined by her class mates played by Tara Reid, Jared Leto, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson and Michael Rosenbaum. The film also stars Robert Englund as a college professor, he of Freddy Krueger fame, Brad Dourif, who is Chucky in Child’s Play, with Loretta Devine and John Neville.

One of the joys of watching this movie now is how of it’s time the fashion and dialogue is. Flared, low rise jeans, little sweater twin sets, choker necklaces and phrases like “freakshow!” The soundtrack of course, is too cool for school. This film was a fun entry in the genre when it came out, the urban legends being so well known, that there was the added tension of knowing what was coming before the characters do, ratcheting up the tension. It’s a very creative idea, and there’s some fun things thrown in, like how obnoxious and selfish some room mates are at college, and Loretta Devine, I love her campus security guard and the way she plays her. I think I first saw this movie at a sleepover and even though I’ve seen it a few times now, I still get a kick out of it. I think it’s a clever slasher idea, it has some funny moments and some scary ones, and for some reason, gives me cozy, rainy night at home with popcorn vibes.

Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)

Loretta Devine returned in the second film, which was also a directorial debut, this time for John Ottoman, who is most well known for composing and editing on Bryan Singer films and for winning the Academy Award for best film editing for Bohemiam Rhapsody. Other than that, the film had a new cast of college kids, and a very different colour and style to it. This time, the campus is super modern and the look is more grey, less autumnal. It stars Jennifer Morrison from House, Eva Mendes and Anson Mount.

This time, the students are in a film course, and hoping to win the Hitchcock prize, which will get them entry into the film industry and fame and fortune. Amy, inspired by a talk with Devine’s security guard character from the first film, decides to make her thesis film about urban legends, making this film a kind of self reflective loop of a film. There are urban legend kills in this film, perpetrated by a fencing masked killer, who has been inspired by Amy’s project, but there are also a lot of film references, to Hitchcock films as well as horror films.

It’s a very post-Scream film, one that’s kind of meta, referencing itself knowingly and poking fun at Hollywood and the film industry and it’s shallowness. It did not do well at the box office or with critics, and I had never heard of it til recently. Perhaps because I was expecting something really bad, I had fun watching this film. Sometimes it’s quite funny or makes it’s point in a clever way, it’s not really trying to hard to be more than it is, a slasher sequel.

Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)

Heading further down the rabbit hole, we come to the third film. This one was direct to video, but there are some interesting things about it. First of all, it stars Kate Mara, at the start of her career. In the first film, early on, two characters try to scare each other by enacting the Bloody Mary urban legend, outside an abandoned building. That’s about the only link to the other films. This time, some high school friends say Bloody Mary’s name into a mirror and accidentally summon a dead school girl, who haunts, hunts and kills them. So, here it’s a supernatural element that was not in the previous films, and it’s a high school rather than a college.

Directed by Mary Lambert Gary, who did music videos, including some of Madonna’s early ones, amongst many others, and she also directed the Pet Sematery movies. Again, this one is not as bad as I expected. It’s definitely not even the worst film I’ve seen. I was fairly entertained throughout, and while it’s not completely unpredictable or original, it’s also not completely terrible. Kate Mara is quite good in it and a ghost story is always fun. That said, unless you’re a completist or are looking for something to watch, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

Future Films?

So there you have it, the Urban Legend franchise. It’s quite a short franchise, as horror movies go. A reboot was planned and teased, but it was just before Covid broke out and took it back out of the running. With the current studio love for remakes, reboots and 90’s era properties, perhaps we will see another film in the franchise soon.

Do you love these films? Hate them? Never heard of the sequels til right now? Have a favourite urban legend? Let me know below.