Urban Legends: Final Cut

Columbia Pictures, 2000.

The main character looks like Julia Stiles, and I actually thought it was throughout most of the movie.

Just thought I'd say that.

Anyway, this is pretty much your standard horror film of these days, in that it relies a lot on spoofing of the genre, it's imbued with more humour than a horror film really SHOULD have, and a paper thin plot about who this serial killer really is.

"Final Cut" refers, obviously, to the fact that these people are film students, so there are a lot of gratuitous references to directors (namely Hitchcock and Truffaut), that, made early on, make one think that perhaps this film might have something more in store, such as an homage, or perhaps be a standard horror flick that actually takes on the storytelling techniques of, say, Hitchcock . . . like the "wrongly accused person" or a study in paranoia, as one film professor states.

But, alas, no. Never happens. Just some comedic references, such as a security guard who loves Pam Greer films, and the comedic-relief duo of prop designers whose Lord is Lucas . . . that's about as far as characterisation goes.

What I gleaned from the Hitchcock references is that the screenwriters WISHED that they were writing a screenplay of that calibre . . . instand of this standard pop fare.

Oh well. I suppose they make a living.


VG