Urban Legends …or Are They? (MVD/Eclectic DVD)

 

Picture: D     Sound: D     Extras: B     Main Program: D

 

 

This film is unwatchable.  I’m always on the lookout for classy low budget fare that’s incredibly surprising, but this is one of the most unwatchable films I’ve ever come across.  Urban Legends …or Are They? is part sketch comedy, part Mystery Science Theater 3000, but not funny, and part Troma, but not classy enough.  If you hand a mentally handicapped gore hound a camera and said go make a movie, it could probably come out better than this.

 

Let me get into it.  This film, if it could be called that, looks like somebody taped a VHS copy of this film using a beta camera, then had that beta max tape transferred over into 8mm, then ran that through a projector from the 40s and then taped it back onto a VHS.  This quality never improves and at times, the picture is even in the shape of a television screen.  Urban Legends is an ensemble piece made up of seven segments.  I don’t have a favorite, but my favorite title of the lot is either “Bucky Bob and the Phone Slut” or “The Crack Head Dentist.”  There is no class here.

 

The film is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, the sound a 2.0 stereo mix that sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can.  I gave the extras a B because I found the one extra, “The Art of Nude Bowling” to be somewhat amusing and about 1,000 times better than the film itself.  At least there’s something amusing on this disc.

 

Don’t.  Just don’t.  For the love of God, please stop releasing utter crap and let good movies exist in the independent market.

 

 

-   Jordan Paley