Urban Legend is a 1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks, written by Silvio Horta, and starring Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, and Michael Rosenbaum, and is the first installment in the Urban Legend film series. Its plot focuses on a series of murders on the campus of a private New England university, all of which appear to be modeled after popular urban legends. In addition to its younger cast, the film features supporting performances from Robert Englund, Loretta Devine, John Neville, and Brad Dourif.

Plot

A killer decapitates Pendleton University student Michelle Mancini in the backseat of her car during a rainstorm. Meanwhile, at the campus coffee shop, student Parker Riley regales friends Natalie Simon and Brenda Bates by describing a massacre in the abandoned Stanley Hall dormitory, which journalism student Paul Gardner discredits as an urban legend. News of Michelle's murder spreads the following day, but Dean Adams and campus police officer Reese Wilson seem determined to bury the story. Damon Brooks, a jokester fraternity member, attempts to console the notably-disturbed Natalie, who rejects his sexual advances while in his parked car at a bluff. When Damon goes outside to urinate, an assailant in a hooded parka attacks him and hangs him from a tree. Natalie flees for help, but Damon's body and car have disappeared when she returns with Reese. Parker and his girlfriend Sasha Thomas assure Natalie that Damon has pranked her.