Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] Kidney Heists, Hitchcock Awards and Twins in ‘Urban Legends: Final Cut’
Twiiiiiiiins.
After checking in with the for-sure lesbians in Dario Argento’s Tenebrae and the maybe-lesbians of Jamie Babbit’s The Quiet, we’re heading back 20 years to revisit John Ottman‘s slasher sequel Urban Legends: Final Cut!
The film takes place at Alpine University, where one senior student will be awarded the prestigious Hitchcock Award for best thesis film and be guaranteed a film career in Hollywood (huh????). Amy (Jennifer Morrison, TV’s House and Once Upon a Time), Travis (Legally Blonde‘s Matthew Davis) and Graham (Joey Lawrence, TV’s Melissa & Joey) are student filmmakers who would love to make it big in Hollywood, but the competition is killer — and someone is killing the competition.
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Episode 91 – Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
“Grab your fencing gear and get ready to submit your student film for the coveted Hitchcock Award, because we’re discussing the 2000 slasher sequel Urban Legends: Final Cut with “Real Queen of Horror” (and co-host of The Bloody Disgusting Podcast) Zena Dixon!
Join us as we dive into this much-maligned film, which was directed by famous composer John Ottman (who manages to integrate tons of horror movie references into the film). We’ve got all areas of the spectrum covered, as Joe hates the film, Zena loves it, and Trace falls somewhere in between.
Of course, we’ll have to cover the bad: Did Ottman take on too much by opting to direct, compose and co-edit the film? Why does this franchise have a knack for bland-o final girls? Why are all the kills so weak? Is Eva Mendes’ lesbian character predatory? And does this film feature the most ridiculous motive ever for a slasher movie villain?
But hey, it’s not all bad. We’ve got a kidney heist (in a sequence written by the first film’s screenwriter Silvio Horta). We’ve got Die Hard‘s Hart Bochner! We’ve got inspired performances from Jessica Cauffiel (Valentine and Legally Blonde) and a returning Loretta Devine (whose security guard Reese was sadly dumbed down between films). Oh, and another connection to The Lizzie McGuire Movie!”
Cross out Urban Legends: Final Cut!
Coming up on Wednesday: It’s a surprise! Tune in to find out…
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! We just did an audio commentary on the first Urban Legend, and we’ll soon have episodes on Spiral (which just hit Shudder over the weekend) and Antebellum.
Maybe you haven’t thought about your good friend Sweeney Todd in a while, or maybe you have. The 2007 movie is a bit of a memory, though a fond one – it has a healthy 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what it’s worth. But 2023’s Broadway revival starring Josh Groban, who your mom thinks is “so talented” (she’s right!), was enough of a hit that its run was extended.
It appears we’re in a bit of a Sweeneyssaince.
For the uninitiated, Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber who kills his customers and disposes of the bodies by passing them off to pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett, who uses them as a special ingredient. But there’s more below the trap door.
Sweeney Todd isn’t just a late 70s musical that turned into a movie; it started as a penny dreadful called The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (author unknown), told week-to-week in the 1840s. Penny dreadfuls were essentially fiction zines featuring serialized stories that were usually horror-based and cost a penny, leading to the very literal nickname.
The String of Pearls differs from the more well-known Sweeney Todd plot in that it follows the investigation of a missing persons case that leads to the reveal of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett’s arrangement, as opposed to the more modern iteration which treats audiences to the duo hatching their homicidal plan and then giving the worst haircuts ever. What a delightfully wild reveal that must have been if you were a reader in Victorian London after weeks of wondering what had become of the missing sailor carrying a string of pearls to deliver to a lovely girl.
Kristen and Will discuss the history and future of Sweeney Todd and works inspired by it this week on Guide to the Unknown. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to get a new episode every Friday.
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