1) The babysitter who receives menacing phone calls, only to find out they are coming from an upstairs phone while the children are sleeping (this one was made into the movie, When A Stranger Calls)

2) The couple who sneaks out to the middle of nowhere, when the boyfriend disappears, and the girlfriend hears a scraping noise on the roof. When she investigates, she finds him hanging over the car, feet scraping the roof.

3) A car approaches you with no headlights on, if you flash them, they will kill you (supposedly a gang initiation)

Alligators loose in the sewers of New York, the ghost in Three Men and a Baby, Mikey dead of a Coke and Pop Rocks cocktail, all of these, are examples of urban legends. Stories, myths, created out of fact, or embellished upon, to teach some sort of lesson. They have existed for years, but have flourished more, with advent and usage of the Internet. So you knew it was only a matter of time before Hollywood caught on, capitalized and ran with it.

When I initially heard this movie idea, I had mixed to elated feelings. Being a fan of them, I thought "What an original idea (somewhat)..an urban legend serial killer. But I also had reservations, I feared that it would fall into the chasm and monotonous routine of its predecessors, and resort to the violence as its main focus, and leave the story as only the framwork. The stakes of horror movies were raised 3 years ago by the innovative modern masterpiece "Scream", that movie gave rebirth to the smart horror movie that Hitchcock initially made famous. A movie that focuses on story, and uses the violence and the gore as an emphasis, rather than a focus in the movies. Basically, showing that plot, and brains, do matter. The recent faire of movies, attempting to capitalize on Screams success, have, for the most part, been failures. I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Disturbing Behavior are two recent failures in my eyes. This movie definitely finishes ahead of those two, and most other recent ones, but falls apart in the backstretch, finishing strong, but not quite enough to overtake Scream, Scream 2, and H20.

The plot deals with a college campus, in the grips of a killer, who has been capitalizing on the fear and interest in urban legends, by fashioning killings after some more well known ones. One girl (Alicia Witt, the daughter on TV's Cybill) seems to hold a connection to them all, and thus, becomes the paranoid victim in the ordeal. Jared Leto (innocently creepy in the murkily confusing and chilling Switchback) plays a reporter, who seems to be the only other person who believes her. Her friends are a group of teen pretty faces used here mainly as window dressing, and to draw in the younger viewers. Even horror movie staple Robert Englund, relaxing, and using his presence to effuse a calm creepiness instead of his over the top Freddy Kruegerish mad tactics, makes an appearance as the professor who teaches the class on these legends

The plot of the movie makes sense, as does the mystery whodunit of the ending. The failure of the movie comes when the filmmakers give up on the urban legend them, and digress into a bloodbath. This was a smart idea, and competently executed, however they seemed to lose faith near the end, and turn up the gore, and turn off the creative mindedness, in order to seemingly make a point.

My suggestion, have faith in your material, follow it through (as Mark McGwire and Tiger Woods will tell you), the follow through, and completion are the most important part.

I give this movie a recommendation, on the basis of its intelligence for the first 2/3 of the movie, granted, it's cliché horror movie schlock, but it's well done, smart schlock. The ending is also sensible, and not out of left field.