When Wes Craven’s Scream arrived in theaters back in 1996, it kicked off a huge wave of hip slasher knock-offs that went on for years. Like Friday the 13th did for the camp slasher craze in the ’80s, Scream paved the way for self-aware, turn-of-the-millennium killer features. Most of those knock-offs weren’t nearly as good, but a couple managed to become memorable, for one reason or another. One of those on the more memorable end of the scale returned to Paramount+ this month, just in time for the Halloween season.
Urban Legend, released two years after Scream, is streaming once again on Paramount+, coming back to the service’s lineup on October 1st. The film, if you’re not familiar, is about as obvious a Scream rip-off as you’ll see, though it managed to find a solid audience upon its release.
Starring Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson, and Tara Reid, Urban Legend is another whodunit where it feels like any member of the core young cast could be the killer. Instead of being influenced by popular horror films, like the characters in Scream, Urban Legend revolves around chilling takes from local lore (as the title suggests).
If you love Scream, and have watched its six installments more times than you can count, Urban Legend might be worth a try. It isn’t nearly as good as any of the Scream movies, as it’s missing a lot of the wit and energy that buzzed through all of Craven’s work, but it might help to scratch that itch a little bit.
Urban Legend‘s biggest flaw is that it lacks any real personality, and you’d be hard-pressed to remember much about it after it ends. The same can’t be said for its sequel, though, a movie that is a must-watch for any fan of ’90s and ’00s horror.
Urban Legend was a solid enough success that it earned a sequel two years later — and that’s the Scream knock-off you absolutely need to see. Urban Legends: Final Cut manages to be more like Scream in the sense of its all-star cast and tongue-in-cheek approach to referencing movie trends, but it becomes so wacky throughout its runtime that it creates something much more unique than its predecessor.
Urban Legends: Final Cut is almost entirely disconnected from Urban Legend and takes the slasher franchise to a prestigious film school. As a group of students try to make a movie about the killer, they start dying off one-by-one. It’s a pretty simple premise, but it allows for a lot more of that Scream-esque exploration of movies, and it leaves the door open for some truly wild scenarios on the film sets.
Not only is Final Cut a lot more fun than Urban Legend, but its cast is out of this world. Jennifer Morrison leads an ensemble that includes Eva Mendes, Joey Lawrence, Anthony Anderson, and Anson Mount. Plus, Loretta DeVine reprises her role as the campus security guard from the first movie, providing the only connective tissue between the two.
The unfortunate part about all this is that, unlike Urban Legend, Urban Legends: Final Cut isn’t readily available to access on a major streaming service. You can find it on the Roku Channel right now, but that’s the only option outside of buying or renting the film.
If you want to have as much fun as possible with a slasher this Halloween, and you’re itching for some perfect 2000s nostalgia, make Urban Legends: Final Cut a priority.
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