‘Final Cut’ proves too predictable, violent > ‘Urban Legend’ sequel worse than original; Weaver back on top in ‘Map of the World’

In Theaters

URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT 94 minutes. Rated R; directed by John Ottman, written by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson.

In 1998, when the first “Urban Legend” sliced its way into theaters, I wrote that it was the Monica Lewinsky of horror movies – so bad, it could bring an audience to its knees.

Now, with “Urban Legends: Final Cut” axing its way into theaters, it seems audiences are once again brought to their knees – but this time, remarkably, for even less of a payoff.

The film, which is no sequel and which will seem all too familiar to anyone who saw “Scream 3,” should have been titled “Urban Legends: Several Cuts Below Your Lowest Expectations.”

It’s terrible – a film that cheats its core audience of teens with every horror movie convention and scare tactic in the book. It has the anonymous hand reaching out for the screaming girl; the screaming girl sitting beneath the open window; the sudden appearance of an animal (in this case, a barking dog) whose leaping presence is meant to jolt the audience with the “unexpected”; a masked killer whose identity isn’t revealed until the film’s final moments.

And so on.

Since first-time director John Ottman is so dependent on the blueprint followed by most B horror movie bombs, his film is sucked of whatever suspense it might have had. There isn’t one scary moment in this movie – not one – just people being murdered for the sake of people being murdered. Sound like fun? It isn’t. In fact, the entire effort just drags across the screen like a day-old corpse from a 3-decade-old Hammer film.

The plot centers on a group of unlikable film students hoping to win the coveted Hitchcock Award at Alpine University. Since winning the award will boost one’s chances of making it as a director in Hollywood, the competition is fierce – which, predictably, means that those in the running will start getting hacked to reduce the competition.

Who’s doing the killing? Take your pick – Ottman goes out of his way to suggest any one of his characters could be the mysterious figure prancing around in the fencing mask. Worse, when he finally reveals the killer’s identity, it’s such an outlandish stretch, the film, already on unsteady feet, can’t contain the absurdity of it. Thus, the audience is reduced to stupefied wonderment – and not a modest amount of laughter.

The timing of “Final Cut’s” release couldn’t be worse for Columbia Pictures, its distributor. On the other hand, it couldn’t be better for teens wondering how they’re being cheated by today’s gutless Hollywood studios and overly timid executives, you know, those more willing to green-light cliched trash than take a chance on something fresh and new.

The film is stacked against the re-release of “The Exorcist,” a movie that sprang out of Hollywood’s golden era, the 1970s. “The Exorcist,” after 27 years not only stands as one of the best horror films ever, but when compared to slop like “Final Cut,” exposes it for what it is: an artless, flimsy piece of marketing aimed at a specific demographic group that happens to have billions of dollars to burn.

Grade: D-

On Video

MAP OF THE WORLD 125 minutes. Rated R. directed by Scott Elliott, written by Peter Hedges and Polly Platt, based on the novel by Jane Hamilton.

Sigourney Weaver’s Alice Goodwin is a woman who feels responsible for the death of one child and who’s persecuted by her community for the molestation and abuse of other children. She handles her fate and the snowballing of her situation with the levity and good humor that either suggest the onslaught of mental illness, a superior inner strength or a mad combination of both.

For a good part of Scott Elliott’s “A Map of the World,” based on Jane Hamilton’s popular novel of the same name, it is left unclear just how Alice copes with the hellish spectacle her life has become. What is made very clear is how discontent she was with her life before her world came crashing down around her in great balls of flames.

She lives in rural Wisconsin on a farm that her husband, Howard (David Strathairn), champions more than she. As a school nurse, she’s famously outspoken about her dislike of the children she treats. As a wife, she’s just as open about her disapproval of her husband – whom she browbeats and considers weak. And as a mother she totally disregards one of her bratty daughters.

Alice is far from Miss Congeniality. She’s about as likable as a Hun, but she’s real, and it’s to Weaver’s great credit that she nevertheless manages to make us care for Alice, whose difficult nature is her undoing, her saving grace and something she can’t necessarily help.

The balance in a movie such as this must be handled delicately or the tone is shot. Director Elliott and his cast, which includes Julianne Moore, Louise Fletcher and Chloe Sevigny, know this and seem to be forever circling around Weaver, taking their cues from her while her character tries to settle into her own skin.

Throughout, there’s a clear understanding that this is Weaver’s movie, Weaver’s moment, which the supporting cast respects with fine, underwritten performances that never draw attention away from the film’s star.

That proves a generous gift for Weaver, especially considering the powerhouse of talent Elliott snagged to star in this, his feature film debut, which is something of a gift itself.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6.