Plot:
The film opens at a gas station where Michelle Mancini (Natasha Gregson Wagner) fights off a supposed attack by the stuttering gas attendant (Brad Dourif). However, the attendant was actually trying to warn her of an attacker in the back seat, and as Michelle drives off, the attacker in the back seat decapitates her with an axe. On campus, student Parker Riley (Michael Rosenbaum) relates how one of the campus halls, Stanley Hall, had been the site of a massacre in 1973. The story is discredited by school journalist Paul Gardner (Jared Leto).
As Natalie Simon (Alicia Witt) is shaken by Michelle's death, Damon Brooks (Joshua Jackson) offers to talk and the two drive into the woods. Damon is attacked by the killer, who hangs him from a tree with the rope attached to the car. As the killer approaches Natalie, she attempts to run him over, strangling Damon in the process.
Realizing Damon's and Michelle's murder resemble urban legends, Natalie goes to the library to read up on urban legends. While she is away, her goth roommate Tosh Guaneri (Danielle Harris), is strangled by the killer. Thinking her roommate is merely engaging in rough sex, the returning Natalie doesn't turn on the lights and goes to bed. In the morning, a shocked Natalie discovers her corpse and the words, "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" scrawled on the wall.
After trying to save Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) from a supposed attack in the swimming hall, Natalie reveals her past, one night Natalie and Michelle re-enact an urban legend; they were driving with their headlights turned off and pursued the first driver to flash them, causing him to run off the road and die in the crash.
Next, the dean (John Neville) is attacked in the garage and run over by his car forcing the emergency spikes into his back. Later, security guard Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine) finds Professor Wexler's (Robert Englund) office empty and smeared in blood. Meanwhile, Paul has discovered the Stanley Hall massacre actually occurred and Wexler was the sole survivor.
Parker gets a phone call from the killer telling him that they have put Paul's dog in the microwave to dry him. He is then lured into the toilet, where the killer forces him to chug bathroom chemicals, killing him. At the radio station, Sasha (Tara Reid) is on air. In the background, her employee is being strangled to death. Sasha screams and runs out of the room; she is still on air and everyone can hear her cries for help. Natalie runs to save her. After a brief chase around the campus, Sasha goes back to the radio station to see Natalie enter the building. Natalie warns Sasha that the killer is behind her, but Sasha is killed.
Fleeing from the station, Natalie finds Brenda and Paul and they drive off to find help. Paul convinces the girls that the killer is Wexler. When Paul stops at a gas station, Natalie and Brenda discover Wexler's dead body in the car and bolt, thinking Paul to be the killer. Natalie loses Brenda but makes her way to a road, where the school's janitor (Julian Richings) picks her up. When the janitor flashes a car with its lights out, it swerves around and pursues them. The janitor's car is forced off the road but Natalie survives and makes her way towards Stanley Hall. She hears Brenda screaming from inside. When Natalie breaks into the hall, she discovers Brenda lying on a bed. As Natalie starts crying, Brenda sits up and knocks her unconscious.
Waking up, Natalie finds herself tied to a bed. The killer comes in and unmasks herself as Brenda. She reveals that the young man Natalie and Michelle killed was Brenda's boyfriend and she is now exacting her revenge. She begins to cut Natalie's stomach in the fashion of the "Kidney Heist" legend, when Reese rushes in and forces Brenda to get away from Natalie. Reese frees Natalie, however, Brenda shoots her after she frees Natalie, who decided to untie the ropes on her hands and ankles all by herself. Paul then appears and tries to trick Brenda. As Brenda is deciding whether to shoot Paul or Natalie, the wounded Reese reaches up and shoots Brenda. Natalie grabs the gun and shoots Brenda, who falls through a window.
Natalie and Paul drive off to get help. Suddenly, Brenda appears in the backseat and attacks them with the axe. Paul crashes on a bridge, sending Brenda through the windshield into the river below. Some time later, the whole story is told among another group of students. The other students disbelieve the tale with the exception of one young woman, who is revealed to be Brenda. The film ends with Brenda telling the group "how the story really goes."
The Babysitter and the Man upstairs.
The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs is an urban legend that dates back to at least the 1960s about a teenage girl babysitting children while being telephoned by a mysterious man who continually asks her to "check the children". It has been adapted for several movies, including Black Christmas, When a Stranger Calls, When A Stranger Calls Back, Foster's Release, The Sitter, and Amusement. It has also been covered in the television programs Freaky Stories and Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed.
A teenage girl is babysitting at night. The children have been put to bed upstairs and the babysitter is downstairs, busying herself with homework. The phone rings, and she hears at the end of the line either silence, a strange voice laughing, or heavy breathing. She at first dismisses the calls as a practical joke, but as she prepares to hang up, a sinister voice asks her to "check the children." When she asks who it is, the caller hangs up. Rather than checking on the children, the teenager decides to ignore the call and goes back to her reading. The stranger calls back several times, each time becoming more aggressive.
Eventually the girl becomes worried and calls the police, who ask her to wait for the man to call again, and they will trace the call. When he calls again, she manages to keep him talking for a few minutes, and when the police call back, they tell her that the call is coming from a second line inside the house, and to get out immediately, as they have already sent some officers over.
As she runs to the door she sees a man with a bloody axe running down the stairs, and just manages to avoid his blow. She runs outside into the waiting arms of police, who quickly kill the man. They then search upstairs and find out that he had already killed the children. He was waiting on the girl coming upstairs, as she was his next target.
Little Mikey - Pop Rocks and Soda Myth:
A few years after the commercial appeared, an urban legend began to spread that the unknown actor who played Little Mikey had died after eating an unexpectedly lethal combination of Pop Rocks (a type of carbonated hard candy) and soda. The legend is to say that his stomach exploded. However, this legend has been proven false by scientists who say that Pop Rocks contain less carbon dioxide than half a can of soda.
Introduced in 1975, Pop Rocks fizz and pop when dissolved in the mouth. The popping sensation is caused by highly compressed carbon dioxide bubbles in the candy. The belief in the spread of the rumor is that the carbonation in the candy, when mixed inside the human stomach with a carbonated beverage, would create a lethal reaction where carbon dioxide would be released at such a rapid rate that the stomach would explode, presumably killing the person who ate the candy and drank the soda.
As with most urban legends, there are variations of the myth. Other versions involve Fizzies candy instead of Pop Rocks, or other child actors (Mason Reese for instance) who have been noted as the victim. It is entirely unknown why Little Mikey was the target of the myth, though some believe that it is because the actor who played Mikey did not appear in any commercials after the legend began to spread.
The myth has been thoroughly debunked in multiple media, including Snopes and the first episode of the television series MythBusters: the actor who played Mikey is still alive today, and there simply is not enough gas produced in the combination of the candy and soda to cause an explosion.
During the height of the rumors of the possible lethality of such a combination, General Foods, the manufacturer of Pop Rocks, spent thousands of dollars on print advertisements trying to debunk the rumor. General Foods ceased marketing Pop Rocks in 1983, and this fact has been used as supposed proof that the rumor is true. However, further disproving the myth, the product was not removed from stores at all, but was sold to Kraft Foods in 1985, and is now distributed by a company called Pop Rocks, Inc.
Mixing Pop Rocks with Pepsi A kid goes to a birthday party, eats six packets of pop rocks, then six cans of Pepsi, the two substances combined cause him to explode from the inside out and he dies a tremendously violent and painful death. So pop rocks were taken off the market.
Origins:
This one first came to surface in the mid 1950's. Mixing carbonate candy with carbonate soda seemed to have invented the conclusion that you will die of carbon dioxide overload and your stomach will explode. Mikey seemed to have fit the bill and got slapped with the urban legend. Kids could recognise him and some could even relate to him. He was a name, yet no one really knew anything more about him than the commercial. So it was perfect for the legend to spread with. Several hot lines were put into place for worried parents to call about the product and even bulletins went out for the product to ease any concerns. Pop rocks and Pepsi are, and always will be, safe to eat together.
'Spider eggs in bubble gum':
Bubble Yum is a brand of bubble gum marketed by The Hershey Company.
Introduced in 1975 by LifeSavers, the bubble gum was the first soft bubble gum created.
In 1977, rumors began to spread that the gum's soft, chewable secret was the addition of spider eggs. In March, the Life Savers Company addressed the issue with an official full-page rebuttal printed in prominent U.S. newspapers (including the New York Times), to dispel the rumor and restore public confidence. Sales of the gum soon surpassed sales of Life Savers candy, and it became the most popular bubble gum brand. Nabisco bought Life Savers in 1981, and The Hershey Company acquired the brand in 2000.
Gang High beam initiation
Beginning in the early 1980s, a widespread rumor regarding flashing headlights was spread mainly through fax, and later on the internet. The rumor states that various gangs across the United States carry out an initiation wherein the initiate drives around at night with his headlights off. Whichever driver flashes his headlamps in response to the unlit car becomes the target; to complete the initiation, the prospective gang member must hunt down and shoot, kill, assault, or rape the target. The story was widely spread by many government organizations, including the New Mexico State Police. This rumor has been proven an urban legend.
The story originated in Montana in the early 1980s, where it was rumored that the Hells Angels bike gang was initiating recruits in this way. By 1984, the story had spread to Eugene, Oregon, where it had morphed into a story of Latino and black gangs targeting whites. In August 1993, the story once again appeared, this time spread through fax and email forwarding. Warning of a "blood initiation weekend" on September 25 and 26, the rumor this time compelled some police departments to issue actual warnings after having received the fake ones. In February 1994, Ann Sibila of Massillon, Ohio reinstated the rumor by issuing flyers which claimed that killings would take place at Westfield Belden Village. After a night of sending faxes to local businesses, Sibila was arrested for inducing panic.
The rumor once again spread in October 1998, when a new fax, this time claiming to originate with a Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer in Texas. The rumor spread further when officials in the San Diego government circulated the fax among city agencies; this version of the fax, though quickly dismissed within city government when it was found that the Sheriff's office had no real connection to it, now appeared to be a legitimate government-issued document. Also in the fall of 1998, the Sheriff's office of Nassau County, Florida sent a warning about such gang initiation to the county fire department, who subsequently spread the fax to all county agencies. Police dispatcher Ann Johnson had thought the message urgent enough to send, but had not bothered to check its legitimacy.
The rumor provided inspiration for the 1998 film Urban Legend, and served as a plot device in Mark Billingham's 2008 novel In The Dark.
The Gang Light Initiation
Police send out warnings to people telling them that when they are driving, they shouldn't flash their headlights to people that don't have their own headlights on. It is found to be a gang initiation where once you flash them with your headlights, they see you as a target. They then shoot at you, run you off the road, or in some cases…make you pull over and…kill you.
Origins:
They say this one started in the 80's with the rise of the Hell's Angels Bikers gang. Rumours started to flare and it managed to travel across various states, changing a little every time. There was actually a time where this rumour was in hysterics. In 1993, rumours got so intense that it was assumed an "initiation weekend" would happen on September 24th and 25th. Of course, the weekend went by without a hitch. This rumour has had some pretty vicious hits since then, again in 1994, and again in 1998. There has unfortunately been a couple of "copycat" cases for this legend where, on two accounts, people were shot at when flashing at someone that didn't have their headlights on.
'Love Rollercoaster'
While the song is known within the music community for its distinctive and influential sound, within the popular imagination it remains best identified with a persistent urban legend. During an instrumental portion of the song, a high-pitched scream is heard (between 2:24 and 2:28 on the single version, or between 2:32 and 2:36 on the album version); this was Billy Beck, but according to the most common legend, it was the voice of an individual being murdered live while the tape was rolling. The "victim's" identity varies greatly depending on the version. The supposed sources of the scream have included an individual who was killed at some prior time, her scream inexplicably recorded and looped into the track. Another version tells of a rabbit being killed outside the studio whose scream was accidentally picked up by the band's recording equipment - highly implausible, since professional recording studios are soundproof. The most widespread version of the myth, however, tells that Ester Cordet, who appeared nude on the Honey album cover, had been badly burned by the super-heated honey used for the photo shoot, which occurred simultaneous with the recording session, and her agonized screams were inadvertently captured on tape. A further variation had Cordet suffering permanent disfigurement due to the burns; she interrupted the band's recording session, threatening to sue, at which point the band's manager stabbed her to death in the control room. The latter scenario, however, is impossible as Ester Cordet is still alive.
Casey Kasem reported the urban myth of the woman being killed in the studio recording booth on his radio show, American Top 40, when the song was on the charts in 1976.
Jimmy "Diamond" Williams explained that the scream was nothing eerie or disturbing:
'There is a part in the song where there's a breakdown. It's guitars and it's right before the second verse and Billy Beck does one of those inhaling-type screeches like Minnie Riperton did to reach her high note or Mariah Carey does to go octaves above. The DJ made this crack and it swept the country. People were asking us, 'Did you kill this girl in the studio?' The band took a vow of silence because you sell more records that way.'
Dog In Microwave
This one is just hilarious. An old lady has an electric bench top oven for years, and it eventually breaks down, as most electrical appliances usually do! So she replaces it with a new state-of-the-art microwave oven. Having used the electric oven to dry off her little show dog after bath time for many years without harming him, she proceeds to do the same, not knowing that there is any difference between the two. She places her dog in the microwave after its bath this time, and it explodes in front of her eyes. Variations include her suing the company that made the microwave and winning due to there being no label on the machine and another is that she comes home and dries out her dog with the new microwave after a quick walk in the rain. In that version, she is drying her own hair when the dog explodes and the microwave door flies across the room at her with half the dog still attached to it.
Origins:
The microwave version came about in 1976, but the idea of old women using electrical appliances, like conventional ovens or clothes-dryers, to dry their pets had been around for years before. They go as far back as stories about cats creeping in wood fired ovens or even babies being washed in tubs that are placed on old ovens while the mother goes off to do something else. When she comes back, she finds her crispy cat or boiled up baby. Cases have actually happened about animals getting killed in electrical appliances but they are always acts of cruelty. Only in the urban legends do the owners have no idea what they are doing. It's pretty clear that the legend feeds off the idea of "lonely old women" that are attached to their pets unconditionally and, of course, the fear of new technology and the extreme mistakes that people could make.
A teenager goes to a party. He meets up with a girl he's never met before but is keen on none-the-less. She invites him to another party close by and they end up alone in one of the rooms together. When he wakes in the morning he remembers little of the night before. He is stark naked, in a bathtub, lying on crushed ice. He looks down on himself and "Call 911 if you want to live" is written across his stomach with lipstick. He used the phone that was left by the bath and he rang 911. He told the operator his situation and she asked him to get out of the tub and look in the mirror. He saw nothing until he turned around. Then he described to the operator the two surgical slits on each side of his lower spine. She told him to get back into the bath and wait for the ambulance. Apparently, he is still in intensive care at hospital awaiting an organ donor. Both his kidneys could have been sold for about $10,000 each on the black market. Either that, or it was medical-students looking for "practise subjects".
Variations include a businessman that's given a spiked drink at a bar while travelling through Vegas and wakes up in a bathtub and the rest is pretty much the same.
Origins:
This one is actually fairly new. It started popping up on the net around 1990-1991. By 1996, the story changed somewhat in the addition of the lipstick on the man's stomach. By 1997, a "hooker" version came out and the story seemed much dirtier, implying that dirty instruments were used. Believe it or not, www.snopes.com tracked this one back to a Law and Order episode that aired in 1991. These stories are apparently loosely based on real stories as the writer gets his ideas from real cases that he reads in the news. The original story was that of a Turk man that went into hospital for one operation and came out with a kidney missing, in which the hospital gave it to another patient. However, even this story has varied widely, depending on whom you hear it from. This legend, like the gang light initiation, has taken some nasty hits. It has been published in newspapers as a genuine warning in New Orleans. This legend is still circulating actively from word of mouth and the Internet and new changes are continuing to develop the legend into something else. Apparently you can also see this legend come to life in Michael Smith's 1999 short film Ice Bath.
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