This bitter pill unfolds at the fictitious Alpine University, where various students are vying for the prestigious (and lucrative) Hitchcock Award, a made-up prize that, like everything else about the film, caters to ignorant viewers: for starters, these things are normally named after the people donating the money; worse, its winner is not expected to have helmed a thriller, namesake be damned--"Hitchcock" probably read "insert instantly recognizable name here" in Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson's screenplay. But I digress...

Newcomer Jennifer Morrison (a telepod fusion of actresses Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst, if you ask me) is Amy, our strong-willed heroine, who's learning about set hierarchy as she readies for competition a 16mm short based on the events of Urban Legend, which, in the world of Urban Legends: Final Cut, have themselves become campfire gossip. (Worry not, the self-reflexivity is nowhere near as trying as that of Blair Witch 2.) Her male crew condescends to her, while a hotheaded peer (played by Anson Mount), whose project is also a horror movie, accuses her, in sexist tones, of "stealing [his] genre." Not to worry: soon they're all murdered. A shame the filmmakers didn't seize on Amy as a potential suspect, a twist that would've come loaded with stronger implications about industry politics than those Ottman presents in the final minutes of Urban Legends: Final Cut.

In lieu, Bryan Singer's erstwhile editor-composer concentrates on giving the killer a franchise identity (note that Friday the 13^th's Jason Voorhees didn't don a hockey mask until Part 3) and conjuring false scares. (Aside: I somehow doubt the fencing gear will stick if there's a second unsought sequel.) None of it is very entertaining, though that could be my jaded side speaking, and, in terms of mise-en-scène, none of it is believable--I know from experience. On other missed opportunities: I anticipated a rash of insider jokes pertaining to film school, and got potshots at Hollywood instead. (Where are the pretentious experimental types? Why is everybody so good-looking?)

You'll have to take me on faith that the former would've been much funnier; I cringed during a scene in which the slater announced take twenty-nine, an inflated number that stresses a stock bimbo's inability to scream without flubbing it. The reality shreds the gag (lifted from Brian De Palma's Blow Out, I might add): celluloid is expensive; no student could afford to shoot with such Kubrickian abandon. It's a vain effort to paint Amy as a perfectionist when in fact her script is of Ed Wood calibre, although I suppose there's a felicitous metaphor in there somewhere: Urban Legends: Final Cut is a waste of film-stock.

Columbia Tri-Star has released Urban Legends: Final Cut in a reasonably special DVD edition. Complementing grainy but sharp 2.35:1 anamorphic and fullscreen versions (the disc is a flipper) is bubbly commentary from Ottman, who right away dispels the urban legend that Mount's tyrannical character is based on Bryan Singer and goes on to speak openly of issues he had with studio execs--Ottman was always gunning for a more cerebral picture. That frankness extends to his optional musings over seven deleted bits of business; lest boys of all ages get their hopes up, the requisite "shower scene" shown here only teases at showing nudity, thus continuing a trend of nineties teen flicks.

A four-minute gag reel full of you-had-to-be-there humour, trailers for Urban Legend, Urban Legends: Final Cut, as well as the two I Know What You Did Last Summers (all in Dolby Digital 5.1), plus weblinks and the aforementioned talent files, finish off this disc. Audio for the film itself is also in DD 5.1, and I expected more from it: bass is all but mute, and the big jolts are missing, uh, the jolt. Ambient sound is relegated to the front main speakers. Oh well, this is the least of Urban Legends: Final Cut's problems.-Bill Chambers