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Warning! Probable spoilers ahead for
readers outside the USA or Canada

Urban Legends: The Final Cut

Have you heard the one about the painfully inept sequel to an already vapid franchise?

Unfortunately, it’s no rumor – it’s Urban Legends: The Final Cut, an ugly, sordid and insipid movie which will likely serve as the final nail in the Scream-derived teen slasher coffin. John Ottman’s follow-up to the 1998 original isn’t just needlessly gory, it’s pretentious as all hell. Set at the prestigious Alpine University film school, the movie revolves around Amy, a student director who decides to make a horror film about – oh, how self-referential! – urban legends. Naturally, there’s a killer on the loose and members of Amy’s cast and crew begin to die mysterious, brutal deaths.

The film-within-a-film in Urban Legends mirrors so completely the actual product that, at this point, you can forgive yourself for wishing the actual cast and crew would meet the same fate. Filled to the brim with arty cinematic references, Urban Legends pretends to be above the material, and the self-satisfaction serves to make this poorly written, horribly acted movie even more unbearable. A run-of-the-mill cheesy slasher flick is one thing; rampant smugness in a film starring former teen idol Joey Lawrence is another.

Sarah Kendzior

The Invisible Man - Season One
10: It Hurts When You Do This

This episode has so many twists and turns, it’s hard to believe this is the same show often let down by past simplistic scripts.

It starts with Darien sympathetic with a captive monkey, but even as you anticipate hilarious animal shenanigans, Hobbes has had a near fatal accident, and it’s become one of those bedside-watch dramas where the hero blames himself. Only then it turns into a Coma-style medical conspiracy with a tone blacker than a coal mine where they haven’t paid the electricity bill. For a lot of the time you don’t know where it’s going, and that’s a wonderful discovery to make in a show.

Ultimately, it’s about sinister medical experimentation – Darien justifiably passionate about the issue’s ethics – while some unnecessary close-ups don’t win over our support either. It’s another episode where our Invisible Man doesn’t spend much time invisible, though for once there’s enough story not to require it. When they do actually use Darien’s ability – he poses as a double amputee – it’s with some respect for the premise and creativity of the pilot episode.

Concentrating more on Hobbes and Fawkes’ central relationship than over past weeks – the Keeper and Official are only briefly present – there’s a lot of fun to be had with Hobbes’ short-term amnesia, while illustrating the beginnings of a beautiful friendship. More please.

Ian Atkins

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