Opening sequence of Urban Legend

Urban Legend was directed by Jamie Blanks and written by Silvio Horta
After a bravura opening sequence featuring Natasha Gregson Wagner getting slaughtered by the killer with an ax hiding in the backseat of her car, Urban Legend tells the story of a group of pretty college students at a remote New England university. The focus of the story is Natalie, a beautiful, academically-gifted student at the fictional Pendleton University. Natalie and her friends are all involved in the Folklore class being taught by Professor Wexler. Wexler regales his class with urban legends, which include Pendleton's own urban legend about a Psych professor who murdered six students at Stanley Hall 25 years ago. Natalie is the first one to suspect there's a killer on campus, especially after she has ties to all of the victims. First, it's her high school friend, a guy she's in the woods with at night, her roommate... No one, including her friends, Wexler, Dean Adams and security guard, of course, believes her until it's too late and everyone begins to die according to famous urban legends, and Natalie believes it's all tied to a dark and horrible secret from her past. Now she finds that she and her friends are part of the killer's ultimate urban legend--the story of their own horrific deaths... Written by K. Wilson (on IMDB)

Budget: $14,000,000 (estimated) 

Gross

$38,048,637 (USA) (17 January 1999) 

£1,146,110 (UK) (21 March 1999)

938,461 (Germany) (14 March 1999)

Copyright holder:
-TriStar Pictures 


Production Companies:

-Canal+ Droits Audiovisuels

-Original Film

-Phoenix Pictures

Distributors:
-Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment 


The typical target audience for this film is a lover of the horror genre. On the front of the DVD case it says 
'...the bloodiest teen slasherfest to come over from the States so far...' this signifies that it is targeted towards a teenage audience. It also includes university students as the main characters, this helps as the audiences can relate to the characters.



The opening sequence of Urban Legend, the setting is important as the woman(Michelle) is driving alone, in the pouring rain on the high way. This is significant as the urban legend is based on a driver going home alone with the killer in the back seat.
While she is driving home, it is dark. The darkness connotes 'scary' and in the darkness no-one can really see who or what is about. This helps the killer as s/he is hiding in the back seat and therefore will be able to go unseen till the moment of death.
On the radio in the car, she is listening to a university radio station that is ran by a typical university girl. The women(Michelle) soon puts a tape in and listens to Bonnie Tyler, total eclipse of the heart. This is ironic as the words 'Turn around' and 'Every now and then i fall apart.' links to the scene. 'Turn around' is in its own way, telling Michelle to turn around as the killer is hiding in the back seat. Also 'every now and then i fall apart' is again telling her that she may die, as after that line the killer rises up and decapitates her.
Before the death, she goes past a lite up and populated 'gas station' and then realises she is running slow on 'gas' and goes to an eerie 'gas station' and thinks she is going to get attacked by the gas tenant, who has a stutter, and is unable to tell her someone is in the back seat before she escaped. When she drove away in her car after slightly running him over. He got up and shouted 'Someones in the back seat' this tells the audience that there is someone there waiting to kill her. To build up the tension there's lightening flashes, and in every lightening flash, the killer slowly rises up, and the light reflect on to the Axe. This makes the audience feel venerable as they don't know where to look.