URBAN LEGEND

Choking Doberman

Everyone's heard the story. A new hit revitalizes a tired old genre. A flock of imatations follow, each trying to mine the same vein. Some succeed in capturing their own magic, or at least 90-plus minutes of entertainment, but most succeed only in copying the most superficial attributes.

Urban Legends does it's best to ape Scream - or at least I Know What You Did Last Summer - but comes off as more like one of the old slasher flicks that the new ones send up. It's got the superficial elements: a cast of neo-brat packers, a gimmicky string of killings (based on - duh - urban legends), a whodunit plot, a brave heroine, a suspicious male lead - but none of the smarts that make Kevin Williamson scripts so engaging. All the characters do the stupid things they should know not to do, and the killer's identity would quickly come out if anybody bothered to do any real detective work.

What passes for selfconscious irony here comes only in the casting, with Brad Dourif and Robert Englund showing up to play red herrings. That, and a reference to the luminous Rebecca Gayheart's shampoo commercials.

P-stars Dourif and Englund; hooded psycho killer; knife fu; Drain-o fu; splatter; head rolls.

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