Urban Legend (1998)

Directed by

Jamie Blanks

Genre

horror film, slasher film, teen film

Country

United States, Canada

Runtime

1h 39m

Rated

R

Rating

5.7 of 10 from 1,487 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A college student on a private New England campus investigates a series of murders that seem to be based on well-known urban legends. She tries to figure out who the killer is before becoming the next victim.

creepysuspensefulcampyformulaicmysteriousgoryfast-paced

What happens

Urban Legend is a 1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks, written by Silvio Horta, and starring Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, and Michael Rosenbaum, and is the first installment in the Urban Legend film series. Its plot focuses on a series of murders on the campus of a private New England university, all of which appear to be modeled after popular urban legends. In addition to its core cast, the film features supporting performances from Robert Englund, Danielle Harris, Loretta Devine, John Neville, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and Brad Dourif. It is an international co-production between the United States, Canada and France. Filmed in Toronto in the spring of 1998, Urban Legend was theatrically released in the United States on September 25, 1998, by TriStar Pictures (through Sony Pictures Releasing). It was a commercial success, grossing $72.5 million worldwide on a budget of $14 million, but received generally negative reviews from critics, with chief criticisms being that the film was a blatant rip-off of Scream (1996). The film has been credited by both cinema and folklore scholars as being one of the first major films to redistribute the urban legends and folklore depicted within it to the public. It was followed by two sequels: Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was released theatrically in 2000, and the direct-to-video film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary in 2005. A planned third sequel, Ghosts of Goldfield, was released as a standalone film in 2007. In February 2020, a reboot of the film was announced to be in development, but it was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the studio losing interest. In April 2025, it was announced that the reboot has returned to development. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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