Shout-outs to Peg, Laura, and Jean...and of course Mallory.
Spooky music plays as the titles inform us this is a Neal H. Moritz production. Yes, it's the man who brought us I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions. Neal Moritz -- your sign of quality. Except for the quality part. Fade in on rain-soaked pavement. It's pouring. I look in vain for Tim Robbins to show up, but nothing doing. This cast is fairly terrifying, but we'll get to them as they appear. An SUV tools down a country highway at night. It's being driven by Natasha Gregson Wagner, or, as we shall call her, Victim #1. She's listening to something called "Under the Covers with Sasha." As Victim drives, we hear a ditzy college girl call in and explain that she's been switching her roommate's birth control pills with baby aspirin and is looking for a new roommate now that the old one's pregnant. Ha. Not. I utter my silent thanks that, as a man, my birth control is difficult to mistake for anything else, and move on.
As she listens, Victim reaches into the back seat to grab a tape. Nice planning, Victim. Who the hell keeps their tapes in the back seat? Come to think of it, what college student drives an SUV anyway? As she gropes, she takes her eyes off the road and nearly veers into an oncoming car. The other car leans on its horn; Victim snaps back into her own lane just in time. This is the first of what I'm sure will be many, many Bullshit Scares. And we're only a minute and forty seconds in. Victim inserts the tape. Apparently, Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was worth risking her life over. She starts to sing along. Badly.
Victim drives past a clean, well-lighted gas station and mini-mart without noticing that she's almost out of gas; she's too into the song stylings of Jim Steinman here. In a minute, though, it starts to rain, which seems to snap her out of it. Then she notices the fuel light and starts praying like a mofo to make it to the gas station. That station is B + B Service, which I think is a total shout-out to Bessie and Joey's humble abode. I'd like to think so, anyway. The gas is here is $1.14 a gallon. Damn, those were the days, weren't they? Victim starts leaning on the horn for service, like, get out of the car, Demanding McBossy. BOO! Bullshit Scare #2 arrives as Brad Dourif appears at her window out of nowhere. Well, okay, maybe it's not a bullshit scare, since Brad Dourif is a pretty freaky-looking guy, what with the long stringy hair and the corpselike pallor. "Y-y-y-y-you rrrrrun out of g-g-g-g-gas?" he asks. "Yeah. Fill 'er up." Victim slips her credit card through the window. Stuttering Brad hesitates, then sets to work. "FrrrrEAKshow!" Victim snots. Because, you know, people who stutter are twisted and warped. I anxiously await Victim's comeuppance.
Urban Legend
“ I shudder as I remember the mic at my college radio station. Putting your tongue on that thing was inviting dengue fever. ”
Stuttering Brad fills 'er up. As he does, he peeks into the backseat and is obviously worried by what he sees there. He heads inside. We are treated to a shot of the Gas Tank of Ominous Portent. Stuttering Brad comes back out, claiming that the credit card company is on the phone. Victim grabs a can of mace and follows him inside. As she does, we hear the deet-doot-dat of the car locking. Because, you know, there are so many people around on an otherwise deserted stretch of 495 or whatever road this is. Inside, Victim looks around the Gas Station of Ambiguous Evil as Brad locks the door. Victim picks up the phone, which is off the hook; it's doing that quick-beeping thing. Brad grabs her shoulder and tries to tell her something. Victim takes this as her cue to lose her shit completely; she shakes Brad off, maces him, and throws the phone through the door's window. She climbs out and books for the SUV, screaming hysterically the whole time. The camera swoops around all Lost Boys as Victim tries to unlock the car, setting off the car alarm in the process. "No! No!" Brad manages to yell as she runs. Victim gets inside and start the car. Brad blocks the SUV with his body and screams, "STOP!" Victim ain't havin' it; she floors it, knocking Brad out of the way and ripping the gas nozzle out of her tank. Brad gets to his feet and screams after her, "CATHCART TOWERS HOTEL!" No, wait, wrong stutterer. He actually screams, "SOMEONE'S IN THE BACK SEAT!" He's showing admirable self-control, I must say. I think I might have tacked on something like "YOU BRAINLESS COW!" to that warning. (He does look pissed off, though.)
Victim sobs as she drives. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is still playing. As she drives, we see the killer rising out of the back seat. For the record, the killer is wearing a big goose-down winter jacket with no flesh visible. I've decided to call him Kenny. (Rest assured, when he eventually meets his end, I will not make the obvious South Park reference. I have too much respect for you to do that.) Victim starts singing along with Bonnie Tyler as Kenny takes aim with the ax. They're at the "Turn around" part of the song. Oh, I see! "Turn around!" Because if she turned around, she'd...right! Of course! Boy, is my head throbbing! Victim finally looks in the rearview and sees Kenny about to take a swing. The editing goes all blipvert for a second, until we get a shot of the outside of the car, completely at rest, as the gore-covered ax smashes through the window. See, I'm thinking if you're going to take an ax to someone's head, maybe don't do it while she's driving a car. But that's just me. I'm practical that way.
Lighting flashes as we see...Pendleton University! Est. 1813! Mwah ha ha ha ha! By the way, I'd just like to say that this film was written by a man named Silvio. Thank you. At the K-ZAB studios, "Under the Covers with Sasha" is still in full swing. Sasha, as played by Tara "Mrs. Carson Daly" Reid, is taking a call from Felicia, who is suffering from an upset stomach after giving some guy a knob shine. "Ah, have yourself a little frat-boy protein shake, did ya?" Sasha asks. Damn, that's way worse than my euphemism. Sasha whips the foam filter off the microphone and goes Madonna on it, feeling it up and licking the tip. I shudder as I remember the mic at my college radio station. Putting your tongue on that thing was inviting dengue fever. "I can feel them swimming inside me!" Felicia cries, and for a second I think she's channeling Drusilla. Sasha lays down the science on Felicia, giving up some safe sex knowledge for the masses and cutting off any critics who would label this film "utterly without merit."
Urban Legend
As Sasha finishes up, we cut to the Incredibly Luxurious College Coffeehouse, with big comfy couches and lots of room and gigantic mugs and no huge clouds of smoke and no folksingers. Oooh, it's Alicia Witt, our heroine. I admit it; she's the reason I went to see this slagheap in the first place. I'm weak. She's chatting with Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart to her friends) and a guy named Parker. No, not the cad who seduced and abandoned Buffy; this guy was on Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane. I think he was Jack. Or Duncan. Maybe he was Jane. Anyway, they're hanging out, and Brenda urges Parker to finish telling his story. Before he can begin, though, Jordan Catalano walks in. I narrow my eyes and glare, for, like all right-thinking folk who watched My So-Called Life, I was boosting for Krakow all the way. Parker tells the tale of a professor of abnormal psychology who went on a killing spree in one of the dorms, and sounds for all the world like one of the guys from Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place, which will always be its name in my heart of hearts. Anyway, somehow this massacre has become the basis of a frat party. I find that entirely too easy to believe. Paul (Jordan Catalano) steps in and totally Scullys the story, much to Natalie's approval. Oh, man, he's going to end up with her, isn't he? Bastard. Hogging all the pale redheads for himself. Parker tries to apply a fresh layer of bullshit, but Paul ain't havin' it, and takes him out at the knees. Oh, please let him be a victim. Paul gets beeped and heads off to the newsroom. Of a college newspaper. For a big scoop. Sure. "Chief! The swim team didn't win that last meet after all!" "What?! Great Caesar's Ghost, man! Remake the front page!" Parker offers Paul a fiver, saying, "If there's another E.coli breakout in the cafeteria, I want you to have the biggest, juiciest burger on me." Heh. Paul grabs the bill. "I'd love to. That article almost won me the student Pulitzer." Ah ha! I smell motive! Paul storms off, not noticing Brenda's flirtatious "Bye, Paul." Parker complains that Paul "can't stand not having his byline on a big story. *cough* MOTIVE!" Okay, I added that last bit. Natalie and Brenda girl-talk about Paul and his cuteness; Brenda thinks Paul was checking her out, while Natalie thinks it more likely he was checking out his reflection in the mirror. Heh.
Natalie and Brenda stroll past Stanley Hall, a condemned dorm which was the site of the aforementioned massacre. I would like to point out that Alicia Witt is extremely cute in this scene. I may return to this theme over the course of the recap, by the way. Anyway. Brenda is still talking about urban legends, and starts to do the old Bloody Mary schtick; that is, she stands before the doors of Stanley Hall intoning, "Blooooooooody Mary." Once you say that five times, Bloody Mary (the crazed murderess, not the refreshing cocktail) is supposed to appear behind you. Why anybody would want to do that is beyond me, but whatever. ["And it's ten times, not five, and you have to do it in a dark room. Idiots." -- Sars] Brenda Bloody Marys four times until a nervous-slash-exasperated Natalie jumps in on the fifth. Nothing happens for a moment...then horrifying groans begin drifting from behind the doors. The two girls back away, spooked...then scream as someone touches them from behind. (Bullshit Scare #3, for those of you playing at home.) It's Pacey, sporting a shock of bleached-blond hair and carrying a flashlight for no readily apparent reason. We don't see the microphone and speaker setup he would have needed to make creepy noises come from inside the dorm, though. "She was trying to summon the dead, Damon --" His character name's Damon, but c'mon, you know he's just Pacey -- "not frat boys with badly grown facial hair!" I squint; I can't see any facial hair. Then again, he does have a flashlight in his face. "Hey, it took me a month to grow this!" I feel your pain, dude. Brenda and Pacey banter a little bit. Sorta like old-school Pacey and Joey banter. If they were hit in the head with shovels right before they started talking. Pacey amscrays, leaving Natalie to comment, "Y'know, he was halfway normal before pledge week."