Please join Best Video for October’s Member’s Choice Horror Series. This year’s presenters were randomly chosen and the third presenter will be member Gianni Gaetano sharing the 1998 slasher horror URBAN LEGEND on Tuesday, October 15th. The screening begins at 7pm and entry is free for Best Video members/$10 for non-members. Freshly popped popcorn will be available for purchase.
GET YOUR NON-MEMBER TICKETS HERE
Urban Legend is a 1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks, written by Silvio Horta, and starring Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, and Michael Rosenbaum, and is the first installment in the Urban Legend film series. Its plot focuses on a series of murders on the campus of a private New England university, all of which appear to be modeled after popular urban legends. In addition to its younger cast, the film features supporting performances from Robert Englund, Loretta Devine, John Neville, and Brad Dourif.
Filmed in Toronto in the spring of 1998, Urban Legend was released in the United States on September 25, 1998. It was a commercial success, grossing $72.5 million worldwide on a budget of $14 million, but received generally negative reviews from critics, with chief criticisms being that the film was a blatant rip-off of Scream (1996). The film has been credited by both cinema and folklore scholars as being one of the first major films to redistribute the urban legends and folklore depicted within it to the public.[a]
It was followed by two sequels: Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was released theatrically in 2000, and the direct-to-video film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary in 2005. In February 2020, a reboot of the film was announced to be in development, but it was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the studio losing interest.
BVFCC would like to acknowledge and thank several organizations for their generous funding which allows us to present our monthly Screening Series. Special thanks go to CT Humanities, CT Office of the Arts, and The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.