i'm not sure if silvio horta wrote urban legend before or after the success of scream , but i'm guessing after just because it seems he may not have had time to write a second draft . 
seriously , this idea--a psycho bumping off people in the style of urban legends--is a great one and i wish it could have been pulled off . 
the first sign of trouble comes with the painfully insipid dialogue . 
an example : " that [car crash] must've been awful . . . for 
everyone involved . " 
you can tell that the writer intended that something a little more airy was supposed to have been said , just no one figured out what . 
i know in slasher movies there isn't supposed to be a lot of great characterization and i myself don't mind cardboard cutouts , but please don't let the cutouts be so damn bland . 
one reason movies like scream , star wars and diva have become so treasured is because they feature charismatic actors playing interesting characters . 
aside from jared leto and joshua jackson ( who aren't on the screen long enough ) no one in urban legend makes the grade . 
alicia witt shows none of the acerbity or wit she displayed on cybill , rebecca gayheart actually looks unattractive ( not to mention as dumb as a post through 3/4 of the film ) and robert englund just cruises on auto pilot . 
good thing brad dourif is here , but wait . . . he's only in the movie for five minutes _and_ he's just redoing his good-natured stuttering character from one flew over the cuckoo's nest . 
which brings me to another aspect of urban legend : it's unoriginality . 
the film most blatantly ripped off is scream ( another reason that makes me think silvio horta wrote this after craven's and williamson's great success ) . 
urban legend tries to deconstruct modern-day folklore much the same way scream deconstructed slasher films , but it doesn't quite succeed . 
it's best stab at self-reflexivity is poking fun at " that girl in the noxzeema ad " ( ie , rebecca gayheart ) we also have another killer-taunting-his-victim-on-the-phone routine in urban legend and quick , what movie is this exchange of dialogue from : 
female protagonist : why ? 
villain : why ? 
why ? ! ? 
congratulations to those of you who answered scream and/or urban legend . 
like i said , this movie could've been great . 
if only silvio had worked or been allowed to work a little longer on the script . 
still , at least urban legend had some pretty cool death scenes and a somewhat realized whodunit angle which makes this slasher is waaaayyyyyy better than i know what you did last summer .