Urban Legend is a 1998
horror film starring
Jared Leto,
Alicia Witt,
Rebecca Gayheart,
Michael Rosenbaum,
Tara Reid,
Joshua Jackson, and
Robert Englund. The film is based on the premise that a killer is using the methods of death described in certain
urban legends as a means to kill his victims.
The film was followed by
Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was released to theaters in
2000, and
Urban Legends: Bloody Mary, which went
direct-to-video in
2005.
Plot
The film opens at a gas station, where a young woman, Michelle Mancini (
Natasha Gregson Wagner), fights off a supposed attack by the stuttering gas attendant (
Brad Dourif). However, the attendant actually tried to warn her, and as Michelle drives off,
a shape appears in the back seat and
decapitates her with an axe. On campus, student Parker Riley (
Michael Rosenbaum) relates how one of the campus halls, Stanley Hall, had been the site of a massacre in
1973. The story is discredited by school journalist Paul Gardner (
Jared Leto), but it sticks in the minds of Natalie and Brenda. The two girls attend a lecture by Professor Wexler who introduces them to the concept of
urban legends.