Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)

The Steves discuss the 2000 slasher sequel Urban Legends: Final Cut, along with more of their favorite urban legends.

Topics covered include:

• Names and numbers behind the scenes
• The origins behind the legends mentioned in the movie
• Having professional motives versus interpersonal motives
• Our feelings of how it could have been better
• And much more!

Ending- Any music or audio clips were borrowed from the original source material.

Transcript

Steve: 0:03

Hello, returning Happys and new listeners. This is Steve Bennett Martin. And this is Steven

Stephen: 0:07

Martin Bennett, and welcome to a

Steve: 0:09

lifetime of happiness. The podcast where we take you on our journey through some of the movies, shows, and other bits of pop culture that are helping to keep us happy while hopefully bring a smile to your face along the way. And

Stephen: 0:19

we're spending July covering one of my favorite horror trilogies, urban Legends, and next up is Urban Legends. Final cut.

Steve: 0:28

Yes. But before we get into how this stacks up to one of your favorite movies of all time why do urban legends in general make you happy?

Stephen: 0:37

I love them because they remind me of the scary stories to tell in the dark books from when you were little or stories that you would tell around a sleepover trying to scare each other before bed. They're fun and they're creepy, and everybody knows at least one. And there's always that story. They're like, Well, I know that that one's fake, but there's this one in my hometown.

Steve: 1:03

Yes. Yeah. And, and I love with that how it becomes almost like our, our generation's version of folklore that you have these oral traditions that are passed on from person to person, where even in the age of the internet, you're never really sure exactly where they came from or how they started. Right. And some of them have even changed, like. In our lives over, you know, what people were talking about as things change, but ultimately like each one has their own kind of lesson or warning or mm-hmm. Thing. And it's just interesting kind of having like these modern day fairy tales of a sort, kind of warning us Absolutely. And so let's get into how does this stack up being the sequel to one of your favorite slashers?

Stephen: 1:45

So I was not as big of a fan when it first came out. It was only after some time that I revisited it and came to really appreciate it. It has an amazing cast. The setups are a little more forced this time since Amy is doing the Urban Legends as a movie. So it's not that the killer is killing people using urban legends, but that the characters are learning about them and filming urban legends and the characters taking advantage of some of those scenarios. But we'll get into all that.

Steve: 2:14

Yes. For Urban Legend's. Final Cut. It is a 2000 slasher film directed by John Ottman in his directorial debut, and is written by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derickson, and is produced by Gina Matthews, Neil h Moritz, and Richard Luke Rothschild. And out of all those names Ottman is best known for his collaborations with Brian Singer, while Derickson is known for his horror hits like black phone, which we covered. Yep. Sinister, which we love. And the exorcism of Emily Rose, which is pretty good too. And Gina Matthews is familiar because we talked about her being responsible for one of your favorite Romcoms 13 going on 30. Yes. And Ahman sought a wacky tone for this film that was more tongue in cheek than that of its predecessor. Do you think he succeeded?

Stephen: 3:02

Honestly, I feel it's less wacky than the original. There's less camp, but it's also less serious. So, In the first one, Natalie's truly terrified as to what is happening all around her, and she's using all of her free time to solve it. Everyone associated with her knew a hundred percent that she believed her friends were being murdered with this. Amy has moments of being scared, though she continues on with making her movie and she's keeping too much of it to herself, which isn't totally her fault, so her figuring it out feels like an island instead of having more of the cast involved. But I blame that kind of on the setup of needing more of her filming to continue so that we have more urban legends to see. Because if everyone took her seriously, they'd be like, we're not doing that.

Steve: 3:53

Yeah, I know. And especially being that the original one came out in 1998 and this one came out in 2000, do you think that perhaps two years wasn't enough time to turn around a good quality movie?

Stephen: 4:07

I. I'm wondering how much the studio got involved. I would love to see like the original screenplay and things of it, because the bones of a very good movie

Steve: 4:18

are here. Yes. And so are the casts because we know a lot of them. It stars. Jennifer Morrison is Amy. Matthew Davis is Travis and Trevor Stark. Hart Bachner as Professor Solomon Loretta Devine as Reece and Joseph Lawrence's Graham. Yes. Now we love Jennifer Morrison as Sheriff Swan from Once Upon a Time, but are there any other standouts from this new round of suspects in Cannon

Stephen: 4:41

fodder? So Matthew Davis redeems himself as a decent guy. After being so awful as Warner Hunting Huntington III and Legally Blonde. But then I just realized, I think Illegal Blonde came out in 2001. So he was a decent guy here and then and into went the

Steve: 4:57

asshole. Yeah. Yes. And Loretta Devine we love, I mean everything. She be No wronging, the fact that she came back as race while maybe compromising your character a little bit. Yeah. It was good to see her.

Stephen: 5:08

Yeah. We have Joey Lawrence from Blossom. Yeah. Handsome Mount as Black Bolt from the mcu. Anthony Anderson from Blackish and Jessica Cofield, also from Legally Blonde.

Steve: 5:19

Yes. And with the budget of 14 million. It was released on September 22nd, 2000, and had a box office of 38.6 million, making it a profit, but not the splash that its first one did. Exactly. Now the movie starts off. With a plane flying through heavy storms that's filled with rowdy college students coming back from Hawaii after spring break, but basically still drunk and horny. Af. Yeah, it's giving off major final destination vibes where you feed, know something's coming, but it's very pre-final

Stephen: 5:48

destination.

Steve: 5:49

Yes, one couple heads into the bathroom to join the Mile High Club. When the girl sees the words, you're going down, written in red on a mirror while he was going down on her. Get it. I do. The plane starts to descend and the couple exits the bathroom to find all the passengers dead and the killer. A flight attendant wielding a knife attacks them. The couple runs into the cockpit to find both pilots dead while the boy tries to hold the killer Stewart off. By holding the door closed, the girl gets in the pilot's seat and yells, mayday over the rainbow, the radio not over the rainbow, while attempting to fly the plane and suddenly. Toby, the director yells, cut as the camera pulls back and reveals this whole thing as a horror movie. Filmed by a small college crew at Alpine University, Toby yells at his crew for not getting the shot right as well as the blonde girl. Sandra Petr over her motivation. Now, first off, would you watch the killer flight attendant movie? Yes

Stephen: 6:46

I would. If I could watch a movie about snakes on a plane, I would watch one about a killer flight attendant.

Steve: 6:52

Yes. And while I may not be or have ever been a film student, does it seem like. Even like fancy college campuses, go all this out with like fake airplanes.

Stephen: 7:02

And I, I think only film schools, I think any regular school would not be, but Alpine University being strictly a film school, I would say they have. Lots of studios and props and things.

Steve: 7:15

Cool. Well, the next day, Amy, who longs to write and direct her own movie Someday, as does everyone at this college is in the assembly with other film students listening to the talk of the Alfred Hitchcock film Award and that the thesis film projects are coming up while a creepy guy watches from the lecture above. Now, for a movie that didn't do so well, it features a lot of familiar faces. Any ones that you're happy to see right off the bat?

Stephen: 7:42

Mainly her, just because of how much we loved Once upon a time. Yes. And, you know, everybody and I grew up watching Blossom, so seeing Joey Lawrence always makes me happy so yeah,

Steve: 7:54

and they're in this like making this movie, so it's kinda like creative writing. Did you ever experiment with creative writing before?

Stephen: 8:02

Well, yes I did. I took some classes and of course I have my never finished novel that will forever be being worked on. What about you? Did you ever write anything creatively? Yes,

Steve: 8:13

I've had short spurts, but I realize that I don't have the attention stand to make long novels in my brain. Quickly spirals into like. Television arcs, and it's always more than I can follow through on.

Stephen: 8:25

Well, walking back to her dorm after late night class, Amy is given a ride by Reece Wilson. Loretta Devine, the campus security guard. The two of them talk about Pam Greer and that they're both fans of her movies. Amy tells Reese that she has a film thesis idea due, but she can't think of a good story. Reese tells her about a thing from a few years ago where about a security guard at Pendleton University and a serial killer that killed eight students there. But Amy's like, yeah, that's, that's an urban legend. And Reese is like, Urban legend, my ass.

Steve: 9:03

Yeah. And it really was a great effective way, I feel like, to recap the first movie, while also giving insight to what happened afterwards with the coverup, as well as, I mean, it's more Loretta Dev Divines, so we can't say no to that. Yes. Now later, Amy Fit visits her, her film class teacher, professor Solomon, and gives him her idea about making a film about a killer who kills people based on urban legends, and he thinks it's a great idea. Do you think like that would be a good, fun college assignment? I think it would be. I think it would be too, if you had to choose an urban legend to make your own spin on or like make a movie out of, what would it be? So there

Stephen: 9:37

are two maybe Burning Jenny. That one was from West Virginia. And you could set it on a train that travels through the area or set it in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where the story happened. It would definitely be a ghost story. Either way you look at it. Or maybe do it about Dudley Town, the Erie town in Connecticut that people call the dark vortex. If a visitor steals an artifact from the area that then they're cursed, it could definitely do something with that as well as the group having to go back and return the artifact, throw in a little land of the little people vibe from Cincinnati, and I think you've got a really good supernatural horror film.

Steve: 10:16

Yeah, I need to put more thought into this being that I answered the question, but I don't know. I think it would be fun to like update one of the older ones that like we all kind of know until like a new generation or like taking, like having an urban legend, be more about like social media technology and stuff like that. Having it involved. But yeah, I don't know. Anyway, that evening, that evening film student, Travis Stark is in a local bar with his girlfriend Lisa, and they talk about his films as Lisa orders two more drinks, someone slips a pill in her drink. Travis leaves to go work on his thesis movie, and Toby walks over to Lisa to hit on her. Lisa leaves telling him that he can pay for the drinks. She stumbles into the coat room where an unseen person sneaks up behind her and throws a plastic bag over her head. Lisa wakes up sometime later that night in a bathtub full of ice with a wound on her abdomen and sees one of her kidneys on a plate nearby. Even though it's not a kidney from a human, it's a good kidney that they had trimmed back because they couldn't. Get a real human kidney. Obviously,

Stephen: 11:13

Lisa sees someone in the other room of what appears to be an abandoned building. She crawls out of the tub and shuts the door, calling nine one one on her cell phone, but the operator, operator thinks it's a prank call and hangs up on her. Her attacker is alerted to her escape attempt, and Lisa tries crawling out a window when the unseen person breaks in. Pulls her back in by digging their fingers into her surgery wound. And the attacker breaks the window and the window is slam shut on Lisa's neck, beheading her with her head just falling outside, and then the co killer tosses her useless kidney to the neighbor's barking dog out

Steve: 11:51

there. I worry that if someone threw a human kidney to Remy, that he would eat it not knowing any better. He totally would. That's. Disturbing. By the way, first time through this movie, there was no such thing as Lisa in the first draft, the sequence with Lisa, Travis and Toby at the bar shortly after her death, and the death itself was a re-shoot. It was filmed several months after principal photography was completed. It was decided after the film was done that a death scene needed to occur much earlier in the film to add a sense of danger. That's why. Lisa's never mentioned before or after her disappearance or her appearance. Toby even had to wear a wig during the sequence because he had cut his hair significantly afterwards for another role. It actually

Stephen: 12:32

works really, really well because it sets up more of Travis's singular focus on his movie as well as Toby being a creepy jealous also

Steve: 12:43

Ram. Yes, and the kidney Heist is actually an urban legend that picks up where the last movie. Left off. Yeah, because that was the unsuccessful one, but it originated in the late eighties, but boomed in the nineties as the internet and email chain. An email blast Flourished. Yep. An email chain in 1998 told a version of a story of a college student who went to a party, was drugged in, his kidneys were stolen to be sold on the black market for$10,000 a piece where everyone at the party like was all involved in this. And it was some giant conspiracy. Leading the transplant programs across the country, issuing warnings and like disregarding the fact that that's not how science works. That's not how donations or organ transplants work and trying to dispel that. That's just a myth.

Stephen: 13:29

Honestly, the biggest part of that is that the kidney was only worth$10,000. I don't think that's enough money for such an important organ.

Steve: 13:37

Exactly. But like it really is. When I did my research, I was like, remember we looked it up and it wasn't

Stephen: 13:41

worth it. No. And. I do remember when that was going around because my parents were like, don't put a drink down at a party. No matter what it is, you either take it with you or you get a new one when you come back from the ba because everyone was concerned that someone was gonna get drugged and have their kidneys stolen. And it, it's

Steve: 13:59

like a nice version of. Avoid telling like younger people, especially to avoid drinks from strangers without having to go right to the whole, like, roofie you will be raped. Right? Like stories. So I can tell, I can see where this kind of originated from as like a lesson or a warning against, you know, social practices of being uncareful with your drink, which I would leave my drink everywhere hoping it would be drugged and it never was. Oh, I'm sorry. I know it's okay. The next day at lunch, Amy and Sandra are discussing various urban legends leading to the following fun references. There's

Stephen: 14:30

the student screaming at midnight. Ah,

Steve: 14:33

don't worry. I won't really scream.

Stephen: 14:35

Well, this movie references its origin being Hong Kong. Its Origin is actually from Floss to Sweden, where every evening around 10:00 PM students, individually or collectively shop from Windows, balconies, and rooftops. To act as a much needed safety valve and cry of angst for students. It is spread across being inspired Hong Kong citizens to shout from their windows every night during the 2019, 2020 Hong Kong protests. And you know, then there was, I guess you could say there's something similar during the Pandemic where everybody went outside and applauded everyone else. Yeah.

Steve: 15:13

And it took me a moment to remember the burrito with roach eggs that hatch inside a girl until I, I read the story and once you mentioned Taco Bell, I feel like, did you hear this? Urban legends? Oh yeah. I was gonna say that a girl goes to the doctor due to her jaw swelling only to learn. She ingested a cockroach eggs from eating a taco bell taco and had to remove a couple layers of her inner mouth to get all the eggs out. And now she's suing Taco Bell. This went viral via email as early as March, 1998, but also has a version where this happened as a result of a paper cut when licking envelopes. Either way, that's not how science works.

Stephen: 15:50

Nope. And you can tell the next one too. So you don't love

Steve: 15:54

the idea of a chicken pus sandwich. That urban legend across high school and college students in the early nineties where a woman gets a chicken sandwich with no mayo. Oh, you love mayo. And she asks for no mayo but bites into it and has this odd taste and sees this like mayonnaise, like substance. So she goes up and says, I didn't order it with Mayo. And they're like, we didn't do mayo. And for whatever. However, science later they find out that it was. Not Mayo. It was a tumor that the dead chicken had, which isn't how it works because they diced chicken beforehand and that would be impossible. But yes, we're done. Steven. You can undo that.

Stephen: 16:36

I had to. Cover my ears cuz that one just grosses me out so much. I had problems even reading that paragraph. You're welcome. I do not like food related urban legends. I prefer horror to frighten me, not make me queasy.

Steve: 16:50

I. There you go. So I know what not to rewrite my Irv legend to be about. Yes. Now the next day Amy asks Travis if he can look at her approved script when Amy tells some fellow students about her movie and the humans can lick two legend. Toby pulls her aside and accuses her of stealing his horror genre and says that no one will take the Hitchcock award away from him because he's earned it being a conventionally attractive cis white man with a rich daddy. Yeah. Privilege. Yes. Now, did you know this humans can lick to Urban Legend

Stephen: 17:22

before? Yeah. Well, it was in one of my books I read growing

Steve: 17:25

up. Yes. The Licked Hand is a deep cut of an urban legend being found in print as early as February, 1982. A very young girl is home alone for the first time with only her dog, and here is on the news. A killer is on the loose. She wakes up in the middle of the night to a scary dripping sound from the bathroom, but she puts her hand down by the bed where her hand was licked, which she was confident was her dog keeping her safe and goes back to bed. In the morning, she finds her dead dog with humans can lick too written in its blood. And with that story, we're more upset about the dead dog than we are the slightly scared, but ultimately safe girl. Correct. Of course.

Stephen: 18:01

Too many animals are harmed in urban legends and this could have just been as scary if she had woken up and like found the dog out in the hallway and her bedroom door closed. And humans can lick too. Written on the mirror. Yeah, and I think it would've been just as, Like just as creepy. Just as creepy. The dog didn't need to die. No. Amy goes to see Travis who is horribly upset because he got a C minus on his thesis film and you know, while she's trying to commiserate with him, she also asked if he knows any cinematographers on the set. Three of the film student Crews, Stan Dirk and Sandra Faan accident in which Sandra plays dead. With some blood makeup on her forehead. I love her for this. Yeah. After Amy describes the scene to Sandra, the cinematographer, Simon shows up with his camera. As people are leaving for the night, Sandra returns to the set for her dorm room keys. Someone sneaks into the studio and attaches a microphone to a camera and approaches her quietly from behind. As she's oblivious to what is coming, she turns around and.

Steve: 19:09

Flash forward to the next day in the screening room. Amy and her friends watch the latest footage they shot. Almost all of it's unusable because Sandra's a horrible actress. But the footage changes to feature Sandra being chased and killed by the unseen killer. Really? Well. Yep. Like she was a very good actress there because she wasn't acting right. Amy thinks it's real, but everyone else thinks it's another one of her practical jokes, though no one takes credit for helping her film it. So how would that be possible? Now the, the urban legend of horror footage being real, I feel like exists long before I heard about it back, which was with the Blair Witch Project. Did you hear beforehand about like, oh, this video or this tape was found and it's a real murder? Maybe.

Stephen: 19:52

But Blair Witch was also my generation. Yeah. And there was even a documentary on the sci-fi channel. Or some channel like that. As the Blair Witch was coming out where they had people talking about the legend, they were interviewing people in the town, talking about other people that have gone missing. It made it seem very, very real. If it weren't for some film reviews talking about how the movie was filmed, I think a lot more people would've totally watched it believing it was real, because I remember everyone saying, Hey, Have you seen that There's a movie about found, like they found this footage. There's footage and

Steve: 20:31

it's a movie. Now I, my mom wouldn't let me watch it cuz I was young enough for her to dictate what I could watch and not, and she wouldn't let me watch it because she heard it was real.

Stephen: 20:38

Like I was convinced it was real. We watched the documentary and I was like, this is gonna be so good. And like in one of the things we had convinced ourselves watching the trailer, That you could see the witch chasing them through the woods as they

Steve: 20:54

ran. Yes. Now question with that though. In that movie people died, do you think you would be able to enjoy a horror movie where you know that the people were actually being murdered?

Stephen: 21:03

So Mom w we told mom it was real and we didn't tell her it was fake until like a good two hours after we had seen it. Yeah. And she was horribly bothered. She goes just to think. Somebody's parents are watching that. Like those poor kids' parents have seen how they went missing or died. And at that point we were like, oh God, we have to tell her the truth.

Steve: 21:28

Yeah. I can't imagine being able to enjoy it if I know it was real, but it was fun watching that movie about. Horror movies that were real. Yes, you did. You showed me it and we had an episode about it all

Stephen: 21:41

about evil. And you can check out our episode with our exclusive interview with Director Peaches Christ.

Steve: 21:48

Yes. Now movie sets at night. Sure. Make a creepy setting for me. Like I know that like any sort of movie about a movie or anything meta like that, there's always that big scene in the movie set and I love it every time. Like I can't see enough versions of that murder happening. Is there any other setting that like you've seen a million times but you'd happily see a million more?

Stephen: 22:08

Like when people are stuck inside during a big storm and the power goes out? I am always fine with that setup. It always works for me.

Steve: 22:20

Yeah. Now, later that day, Amy and the others get news that Travis killed himself. Another film student named Graham Joseph Lawrence talks to Amy assuring her that Sandra's probably in Los Angeles filming a bit part on the series er, and then shaming her for having a famous dead dad when she won't sleep with him to get her film made. Men are gross. Now, did you ever get an indecent proposal that you turned

Stephen: 22:43

down? Yes, I did in college and in Cincinnati. What was it? No. Okay.

Steve: 22:50

Nope. All right. Fine then. Well, I never had when I turned down. No, just kidding. Now Amy goes to the campus tower where it said that Travis shot himself over his bad grades and feelings of his film career being over before it started there. Amy has a run in with Travis', identical twin brother Trevor. Also played by Matthew Davis.

Stephen: 23:10

Good casting to go ahead and cast the same person as the twin.

Steve: 23:14

Yes. He tells Amy that he thinks Travis didn't kill himself, but he tells her not to tell anyone that she saw him, which is totally how innocent people act. Yeah. Now, but the location, fun fact, since the campus used as Alpine University in the film, didn't have an actual Bell Tower, 150 foot tower was built with an estimated$150,000 for this movie. So that's a big chunk of their budget. All of the interiors were done on a separate stage. And the bell, which we see later used in a death scene, is made out of paper machete. That's funny. Machete, not machete. I know what you

Stephen: 23:48

meant. Now first time through, like you have the whole Travis, Trevor thing. Did you suspect anything? Was it too obvious or red herring for me? I definitely thought something was off. Maybe it was Travis, maybe Trevor did it. I watched a lot of soap operas, so maybe Travis didn't know he had an identical twin that had been put up for adoption, and Trevor had grown up being resentful of the child that mommy and daddy had kept, and Trevor killed Travis and was there to take his place and like. There was always that

Steve: 24:26

possibility. Meanwhile, I spent the most of the movie feeling that like Trevor, like that Travis didn't kill himself. And that like Trevor was Travis or something. I, like, I some, something was up and it, like, I knew that it had, it had to be involved with the plot somehow. But I didn't think that he was innocent.

Stephen: 24:45

Yeah. I never went with one was the

Steve: 24:48

other. Yeah. Now that evening Amy films a scene where the students countdown to the new year and scream or countdown to midnight and scream. Yes. They get the an on-camera footage. They need an Amy dismisses everyone except

Stephen: 25:03

any of the volunteers that are gonna stay there to have their screens recorded for audio to add to the already shot visuals. Simon doesn't need to be there anymore because there's no visuals. It's just an audio recording. So he's outside smoking a cigarette on his way home and the killer wearing a fencing mask in this movie instead of the, we don't know what was under the hood of the last one. Yeah. I like the fencing mask. Yeah, it's nice. Attacks him with his own camera and beats him to death with it. Amy, having heard the last part of the killer, Killing Simon goes outside where Simon Simon got attacked, but the killer in Simon's body are gone. Amy notices a security camera and she goes to Reese to ask to borrow the tapes. For the last hour or so with the cameras have

Steve: 25:51

recorded. Now you gotta admit timing your kill for a time. You know, everyone around you is gonna be screaming as a very good plan, but. I mean, I can't imagine staying up till midnight to scream. If I did in college, it would've been more for like sexy time screams cuz it was hard being able to have some privacy back then. I also

Stephen: 26:10

love that the killer believed he had a full minute to do the killing because he knew of the urban legend. Yeah, but aim, you can see on Amy's watch that she stops recording the audio screams after 43 seconds. Which is how she was able to hear the last part of the murder, and when she watches the tapes later, the killer finishes the murder at exactly 1201. Yes. So he was planning for that full 60 seconds. It's that 17 seconds that got Amy onto him.

Steve: 26:40

Yes. Not like anyone believes her. No, because Amy Barrs the tape from Reese and is watching it in the studio where she sees Simon killed by the hooded fence mask killer. The killer appears in the creepy mask and breaks into the studio, but she locks the door to the booth. He breaks through the glass window thingy and Amy's chased through the building to the dock where she dives into a sewer pipe while running through the sewer tunnel. Amy finds Reese and the two of them go back to the recording studio, but the tapes are gone. Reece is skeptical to Amy's claims about being attacked and also says she can't do anything without evidence. Now I can deal with wacky camp and like massaging plot holes, smooth things around, but like in what world does like Reece survive the first movie where she was literally shot and like, oh, considered basically dead. Like she only survived because she's Loretta freaking divine. Like I. How would she hear that? Like something like this could be happening again and not take it seriously?

Stephen: 27:34

Yeah, that's my biggest issue with the movie. Reese should have immediately 100% believed what Amy was saying. I don't buy her being a skeptic, not after Pendleton. Like that was one of the parts of the script that could have and should have been different. Different, yep. So the next morning, Amy secretly meets with Trevor again, where she tells him, That she thinks that Sandra and Simon are dead. But Trevor tells her that he can't go to the police where he has a bad relationship with authorities in the past and he doesn't wanna draw the attention and they won't believe him either. And Amy thinks the killer might be one of the students up for the Hitchcock award. Now,

Steve: 28:16

I don't think it's a spoiler cuz I don't think it happens, but we never find out what this criminal past is that he's so a afraid of the police is. Do we? No, we do

Stephen: 28:24

not. I

Steve: 28:24

mean, it's probably make something up

Stephen: 28:25

for me. He got involved with selling drugs. Okay. And like the one brother that was so focused on making something of himself and the other was a screw off who was doing and selling drugs.

Steve: 28:39

Now in terms of motive winning award is passable, I feel. But do you prefer personal motives like this or interpersonal motives? Like the first one where it was all tied back to something

Stephen: 28:48

she did. So I do think it's more than just the award. I think it goes along. With what it is a guaranteed Hollywood career. We've seen in movies like Scream three, what people will do to make it Big, r i p, Sidney's mom. But yeah, the motivation is a bit weaker. There are ways it could have been fixed easily enough though as I said, and they do tweak it a little bit. They tweak it a little bit later and that helps. But I maybe would've like more people besides. Just Toby and Simon, or not Simon, Toby and Travis like being gung ho, like maybe they all could have been Type A personalities so that, you know, more people would've been really. Up for it because some of the people were just like, I'm in film school. Yeah.

Steve: 29:37

Now Amy takes the run to go through suspects and theories, so that's a good time to share. Who were you thinking it was this time around? I was totally on Trevor being his brother or something weird with that. Yeah. I mean, why

Stephen: 29:49

not? Toby, he's creepy. There's Kevin, the PA that is overlooked and poorly treated in person in every scene that he is in. And Graham who. Seems like now that Travis is gone, the one that's most. Hungry, determined and hungry because he needs to be famous for

Steve: 30:09

Daddy. Yes. Now that evening Amy and colleague Vanessa, the booms operator on the film who clearly has a crush on the straight Amy Head to ride Mary Miners the location of the tunnel of Terra Carnival ride scene where the urban legend has railed up, bought dead bodies in the carnival ride. Stan and Dick arrived there to sit up the bodies and Amy asked Graham why he brought along the odd pa. Kevin Graham is upset that Amy is pulling a power trip in front of everyone and we leave. Amy sees Trevor watching them from a tree nods to him and tells everyone that they can leave to get something to eat. When Stan goes off into the tunnel to fix more lights, the killer hits him on the head and electrocutes him with a sliced cable. Next, the killer attacks Dirk and pushes him against the control box. Electrocuting him the rides. The rail car stops with Amy inside and she walks the rest of the way. Amy finds Dirk's dead body and is chased by the killer to the entrance where Reese is waiting. Again, she ventures into the tunnel, but the killers fled. The police arrive and carry away the dead. Stan and Dirk, while they take Amy away for questioning. Now, in all my theme park experiences, I've never heard of, like the whole dead bodies being in the ride thing. Did you? Yeah. So

Stephen: 31:24

there's an urban legend of a haunted house ride at Camden Park in West Virginia. It's one step up from a carnival, but it's like a permanent carnival. So the urban legend stated that the ride was like, because it's West Virginia has to shut down for the winter. And so like during the fall and winter the copper hits, snakes went in there and had a lot of babies. And so come springtime when it opens, people are riding through and the first people coming out of the haunted house ride. They're all dead and people see all these like they'd been bitten to death by all the copperhead snakes. Yeah. And so that was a big urban legend thing. And a lot of people wouldn't go on the haunted house ride. There, I don't know if you remember we watched a movie called The House is October Built.

Steve: 32:17

Yeah, I do remember

Stephen: 32:18

that. Yep. And in one of the opening things of it where they're talking about Urban legends and things related to haunted houses and stuff. They actually show a clip of the haunted ride from Camden Park on there, and I was like, see, it did make it further than just West

Steve: 32:36

Virginia. There you go. And also, would you be able to go out and like film this whole scene if you were chased by a murderer the night before? Can

Stephen: 32:47

we talk about how Amy was chased by Hiller the night before and she feels safe enough to be alone outside, whether Trevor was watching or not, because he was in the woods, 50 to a hundred feet away or more? Like someone could pop up behind her and at this point she should have told more people about her theories. Like no one is wondering why Simon didn't show up for this shoot. Like what was her excuse for needing a new director of photography? And if she's really scared and they are setting this trap, like have more

Steve: 33:20

fail

Stephen: 33:20

safes in place. Yeah. Don't send everyone away. Like was that like, so that there's less potential victims or I. Poor planning. Yeah, it just like, that's one of the areas of the scripture. I was like, this needed help.

Steve: 33:34

Yes. And Reece keeps showing up at the most convenient times to the point where it almost felt suspicious to me. Now, I would never want to see Loretta Divine be a murderer, but I was remembering like, I was like, oh God, they're not gonna do this, are they? Because like, I think part of it was her pa bad character writing. Yeah. But I was like, something's up with her and it just feels weird. Like no,

Stephen: 33:54

it's one of those like, I never ever thought that it might be recent. Just like they may have made her skeptical of Amy. Yeah, but it's not in her character

Steve: 34:05

to do this. Yeah. Now, what happens the next day? The next

Stephen: 34:08

day, Trevor meets with Amy in a room where he tells her that he followed Graham, but he lost him the previous night and can't rule him out being a killer. They lie down together on Amy's bed where Amy falls asleep and she has an intimate dream of her and Trevor having sex when suddenly Trevor stabs her and Amy wakes up in the bed alone. Have

Steve: 34:28

you ever had a dream where I murdered you? No. I don't think I've had a dream where you murder me either. Well, that's good. That's good. All right. Now my biggest reason for hoping Graham wasn't the killer was because I was hoping the killer would murder him gracefully. Just

Stephen: 34:42

for the record. Yeah, that tracks. He's not a nice person and definitely the frat boy of this film. I also believe that Trevor's doing some gaslighting on Amy, making her rely only on him, keeping her from opening up to her friends. Even Edward Cullen would look at this and be like, dude, that's a bit much.

Steve: 35:00

Or he'd be taking notes. But yeah, I definitely feel like all the men in this movie are horrible. Yeah. Now Amy sees a light on in the tower and finds Vanessa who says she got Amy's note to meet her. There. Amy replies that she didn't send any note. When a dummy falls on the table, realizing they've been set up, Amy grabs Vanessa and the two girls run up to the tower, followed by the killer without ever telling Vanessa that there's a killer or why they should be running from this person. They hide in her room where the door opens and the killer grabs Vanessa, but leaves Amy locked in the room. Amy finds herself trapped with the corpses of Sandra and Simon the cameraman, and breaks down the door only to find dead Vanessa hanging from the paper mache tower Bell. Yeah. Amy runs outside where Reese sees her and begins to follow her. Now I don't really know of an urban legend. I couldn't find one on Googling about, like the past love note or, yeah. I don't think it is one. But like, did you ever have an issue or like a, a mystery like that or someone forged a note or found a note? So

Stephen: 35:58

I, it was also a mistaken apartment. Mm-hmm. Because the note was left at my door, but it was actually for the apartment across the hall. And I was really confused by the content and not knowing the handwriting and things. And it wasn't made out to Jessica. It was just like written without like, dear Jessica, it was just written out. I was like, I don't get this. And it wasn't signed and like, it wasn't until like we were talking about, I was talking to her and I was like, I got this note. And she goes, I know who that's from. And I was like,

Steve: 36:34

Thank like, so that's the close. At least. That was confusing. I mean, I remember back in the seventh or eighth grade when my friends and I were all assholes, we thought it'd be fun to like forge love notes pretending that we were like confessing our love to someone like, but like we would write it as someone else. Unfortunate people. Unfortunate people. We would send them love notes from other unfortunate people and try and make love connections because we had the best intentions and weren't being asshole children. I'm sure you weren't.

Stephen: 36:56

Yes.

Steve: 36:58

Growth.

Stephen: 36:59

Yeah. Amy finds Trevor takes her to the library. He tells her that in his own investigation, all the people that had worked on the thesis film, the gods of men or his brother's film are all dead. They watched the a very bad film and at the end of it, Amy notices a splice and says that it's not Travis Travis's film. It's his credits, but not his movie. Someone has taken his movie plans to pass it off as their own. And there's only one person still living that worked on Travis's film, Amy and Trevor Wale. Toby, as he is driving to the campus by flagging him down and threatening him with a gun as another urban legend, the guy picking up a dead hitchhiker, they take him to the studio set and handcuff him to a chair and accuse him of being the killer for, he's the only surviving crew member that worked on Travis's

Steve: 37:51

film. Yes. And when they go to find Toby, am I the only one who was like, who's Toby? Yes. Oh, okay.

Stephen: 37:57

I forgot about him. My biggest thing is that after the harrowing events at the Tower with Vanessa's death, them sitting through the movie is too calm. Like maybe have found a way to put this scene first, or at least the part of them watching the movie and figuring out that it isn't Travis's movie first. Then have them split up Amy to find Vanessa and Trevor to find Toby like the last two people. And Amy finds a note on her door from Vanessa that she's at the tower, and then the tower scene plays out and then Amy comes to the set where Trevor already has Toby tied up and set it up in a way that we start to have serious doubts about whether we should trust Trevor. Well, you know, that's how to have, how I would've done it to make Amy seem less, that she doesn't care that her friend just was

Steve: 38:46

hung. Okay, so note to self, if one of the lesbians mysteriously dies, were not going home and watching a movie. Correct. Okay. Good to know. Yep. Now just then, professor Solomon arrives where Trevor acting as Travis says that Toby stole his film. Toby reminds Travis that Travis did the sound on his own and merely gave the credit to Toby, who has never seen the film. Suddenly, Solomon reveals that this means that he gave Toby an A for nothing and pulls out a gun and shoots him. Only to realize that Trevor isn't actually Travis. Now, did you see this coming? I did not.

Stephen: 39:19

Not even a little bit. But it does start to make more sense, especially with some of the things that come up. Is it bad

Steve: 39:27

that my first thought was like, this is a very big overreaction for forging a grade, and I didn't realize that this meant that he was a killer until he started doing his backstory. I just thought this teacher took like plagiarism and faking work very seriously. I can't

Stephen: 39:41

believe you did that. Damn you. No. Why would you go around with a gun?

Steve: 39:45

I don't know, but I figured it out real quickly cuz he g gives us all the explanation that we need real soon. Yeah. Trevor goes for the gun and Amy runs Solomon knocks Trevor aside and holds him at gunpoint. The professor tells Amy that many years ago, her father was one of the judges who cast the deciding vote against him for the Hitchcock Award in film school. Leaving him to be a horrible college has been teacher his entire life, and it's all her daddy's fault and not his own for his abilities. Yeah. Solomon explains that. When Amy came into his office on that day with her idea about making a horror movie about an urban legend serial killer, he was like, that's a great idea. I'm gonna kill everyone who worked on Travis's. Film and frame her for the killing so I could steal his film and submit it as my own. No problems with that plot. Yeah, Graham Go comes out of hiding and swings a chair at Solomon, but it's a prop chair and falls apart on impact. The four of them battle over all the different guns with Graham getting shot in the back with what we can only hope is a fatal wound. So Reece

Stephen: 40:43

arrives and points her gun at all of them. Unsure of who is the killer. She makes Amy kick the gun away. Okay, everyone out of the creepy ass graveyard, including the undead because she thinks it's Travis feigning Innocence, Solomon and Reese, that Amy's the killer because Reese saw her running from the tower a few hours ago when Vanessa was killed. Reece points her gun at the professor saying that she never told anyone that she even saw Amy running from the tower. And the only way that Solomon knows. Is if he was there, Solomon punches Reese and she punches him back. And then during the struggle they knock over an entire milk crate of prop guns and the prop gun gets mixed in with the real guns. Amy, Trevor and Solomon each come up with a gun. Trevor. Trevor gets a click of a fake, and then Amy Bates Solomon with those who can't do teach Jab, and he gets a click as well. And Amy has the gold trim gun that Reese had shown her earlier. And, but she can't do it. She can't shoot him, and so she tries to pass the gun to Reese and she's like, just give it to me baby. And Solomon jumps on her, and then he and Amy are struggling over the gun, and then he gets shot during the struggle. Reece then places him under arrest as Amy and Trevor embrace. Graham also finds that Toby is still alive and he will survive. Not that we care.

Steve: 42:10

Yes. So they made it somewhat personal with her dead dad's vote against Solomon. But was the reveal worth the bread? I can't even call it bread crumbs. Wasn't there just like one line about her dad? Yeah.

Stephen: 42:20

Well, no, like we talked about him earlier about how, you know, famous and da da da. It has the bones of a very, very good movie here. It needed some tweaking. And maybe I do give the film more leeway because I see how good it could have been. And it's not like the performances are bad. All the acting is good. Yeah. All the acting is good. The scenes are great. The atmosphere is nice, like. There's so much good with this movie. Yes.

Steve: 42:50

Now, some months later, Trevor is accepting the Alfred Hitchcock award on behalf of his of his Late Brother's film. When the Creepy PA Kevin perched high atop a walkway, attempts to shoot Trevor as he's accepting the award and gets shot by Reece, Kevin falls off the scaffolding into a large airbag below, as Amy yells, cut. It's the last scene of Amy's very first independently funded movie titled Urban Legends with her directing Trevor in the leading role. Toby is the assistant director and most of the crew in acting parts with Graham talking on a cell phone nearby as Amy's manager to discuss her film's upcoming completion for a future premiere. Yeah. Now, if you survived a tragedy like this, would you pull an Amy or Gail Weathers and make a movie or book about it, or would you be trying to move on?

Stephen: 43:35

Since they're creative people, I can definitely see them making a movie or a book as part of the healing process. For me, it would be therapy, meditation, and silent retreats. What about you?

Steve: 43:47

I would probably write a book if I could make money off of it. Yeah, there's no, I would, yeah, monetize my pain for sure. In a

Stephen: 43:55

final scene set, another few months later, a TV set showing Amy's complete film was turned off by a nurse while Daz and near catatonic Solomon, now confined to a wheelchair from his gunshot wound is residing in an asylum. I just love that film, don't you? I think we have a lot in common. Solomon is wheeled away back to his room by a familiar looking nurse who is Brenda Bates, the Wild-Eyed Killer from the first urban legend movie and the inspiration for this whole thing. How much did you love that? So much? Like it's kind of like at the end of the gym movie and then the misfits showing up in the post credit scene. I was like, That helped he a lot. Having Brenda come back as this helped a lot,

Steve: 44:47

what would you, would you have liked to watch a third movie where it was the two of them teaming up?

Stephen: 44:52

I would definitely like to see Brenda and Reece return. I would be okay with Solomon there as long as like Brenda double crosses him and kills him and. Like he's being all smug and then she like pushes him out a window or something. I think that'd be amazing. Yes. Sounds good. And Reese needs to believe the crazy ass white girl the first time she tells her something's wrong.

Steve: 45:16

Yes, she does. All right, final

Stephen: 45:18

thoughts? It's really fun. It has, you know, some issues that we've talked about. But overall it's a fun continuation. It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. So yeah. This is the last one in the series that is a slasher. The next one is Supernatural. Wow.

Steve: 45:38

We'll be sure to dive into that one next week. But in the meantime, we'd love to hear your thoughts on Urban Legends Final Cut. You can do that by emailing us at happy life pod gmail.com,

Stephen: 45:49

or you can get in touch with us on the socials, whether that is Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at Happy Life

Steve: 45:57

Pod. And until next time, everybody, stay happy.