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CORRIDOR
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DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 1, NO. 16 |
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Beware this amateurish film about amateur horror filmmakers
By
JOHN STANLEY
of theColumnists.com
DID YOU HEAR the urban legend about the poor girl who was freezing her buns off when she woke up in a bathtub filled with ice cubes? Some guy with a butcher knife had cut out her kidney and was over at the sink, getting it ready for some millionaire recipient who worked for a dot.com company.
Although she was bleeding profusely at the side, she marshalled enough strength to climb out of the tub and make toward the nearest window to escape. Only the guy with the knife saw her fleeing and came after her. She had just enough time to reach her cellphone to call 911 and tell the operator about waking up in an ice-filled bathtub. "Don't tell me," says a disbelieving emergency operator, "your kidney's gone!"
And that's when the guy with the knife arrives to finish the job.
Of all the urban legends that exist in the urban-legend annals, this is the only one you're really going to see enacted in "Urban Legends: Final Cut," a sequel to the 1998 "Urban Legend," which at least depicted a half-dozen classic horror tales of dubious origin that are always said to be true by their spinners.
This new film, which is a sequel only because that ass-kicking security guard Reese (played by Loretta Devine) has been revived, is another horror film about horror movies, shamelessly following in the vein of the "Scream" series. All of its characters are wanna-be movie makers at the Orson Welles Film Center of Alpine University and they talk about making their dream projects in hopes of copping the $15,000 Hitchcock Prize that the university awards annually to the best "senior thesis film." All of them talk about making genre movies not unlike "Urban Legends: Final Cut" so you got to wonder what standards the Orson Welles Film Center has established--if any.
It may sound promising, a premise totally predicated on satirizing movie genres and the people who make them, but I guess I've seen one too many slasher flicks, or maybe the "Scream" series has sucked the idea dry, or maybe it's because director John Ottman, a professional film editor turned director and writer, resorts to the usual slasher movie cliches instead of searching for fresh ways to window dress his weary concept.
How much longer can film makers, whether serious or satirical, have people stalked by homicidal murderers wearing masks? This time around it's a fencer's mask, but nothing special is made of this except it's the usual means of concealing the killer's true identity. This killer doesn't even employ a poison-tipped epee. He doesn't even say "En Guard." He doesn't even make reference to a "saber-toothed tiger." How about "Foiled again!" See what I mean about lack of originality?
I was also bothered by how poorly the characters were etched, especially Jennifer Morrison as the wanna-be John Carpenter who gets the idea to make a film about urban legends, but then behaves as dumbly as any heroine trapped in a horror movie when she's stalked by the fencing-mask fiend. How do you relate to a ridiculous character like this or even care if she's eventually going to solve the mystery, or even get her superdumb movie made. Even after a few characters have been found horribly mutilated, she still walks into a darkened area as if nothing is going to happen.
My favorite line: "You've stolen my genre." I'd like someone to explain to me how a genre gets stolen. I'd like to try and pull it on my Webmeister.
© 2000 by John Stanley.
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