Urban Legend (1998)

 

Directed by Jamie Blanks

IMDB link

​Urban Legend was a teen horror movie set at the fictional Pendleton University where a rash of murders are being committed 25 years after the campus was the site of a massacre. The bizarre murders all resemble different urban legends.

 

Warning: Page includes plot spoilers.

Filming on the Lakeshore Grounds

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Humber College's G Building was the site of Stanley Hall, the supposed site of a blood massacre in 1973, and Cumberland House serves as the fraternity house.

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When the film was in production in 1997, G Building had yet to be renovated (it was the last of the fomer Lakeshore Psychaitric Hospital buildings leased by  Humber College to be renovated; it re-opened in 2016). The derelict building provided the perfect setting for the site of the boarded-up, abandoned Stanley Hall. Wooden slats were placed across each window and the site was only visited at night, often in stromy weather, adding  to the mystique of the location.

G Building

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Humber College's G Building was the site of Stanley Hall where a bloody massacre took place 25 years prior. Early in the movie, Natalie (Alicia Witt) and Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) talk about the legend of the Stanley Hall massacre and dare one another to stand in the doorway under the arch on the east side of the building and repeat the words "Bloody Mary" three times. They jump when they hear moaning coming up from the boarded-up door.

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Towards the end of the film Natalie (Alicia Witt) hears screaming coming from Stanley Hall and climbs the south-eastern exterior of the building. She and Paul (Jared Leto) then confront Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart), an argument which results in Brenda falling out the second floor window over the archway of G Building's east entrance.

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When the film was in production in 1997, G Building had yet to be renovated (it was the last of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital buildings leased by  Humber College to be renovated; it re-opened in 2016). The derelict building provided the perfect setting for the site of the boarded-up, abandoned Stanley Hall. Wooden slats were placed across each window and the site was only visited at night, often in stormy weather, adding  to the mystique of the location.

Cumberland House

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The former residence of the Superintendent of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, today known as Cumberland House, served as the fraternity house in Urban Legend where a Halloween party is held.  

Fun Trivia

Urban Legend was released only two years after the first of the Scream trilogy films and received much negative criticism when the two were compared. Both films feature a well-known group of young actors playing a small group of friends who are overly familiar with the horror movie genre and find themselves at the centre of a series of bizarre murders. Like its counterpart, Urban Legend did not hesitate to make fund of itself:

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Just prior to his death, Damon (Joshua Jackson) turns on the radio in the car - the song playing is the soundtrack to his hit TV show, Dawson's Creek (Paul Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait').

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At the end of the film a group of students sit around talking about the murders and debate whether or not they are an urban legend. One of the students jokingly says that they "bet Brenda was the girl from the Noxzema commercials" - which rebecca Gayheart did star in.

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When Paul (Jared Leto) and Natalie (Alicia Witt) break into Professor Wexler's (Robert Englund) office, they spot a Freddy Kruger puppet; Englund played Kruger in A Nightmare on Elm Street.