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Urban Myths & Legends or How to Make Your Own Bad Movies 101

Toss your popcorn in the air & ready those barf bags! It’s summer slasher movie season! Oh yea - I love this time of year! But did you every pause wonder where they get that seeming endless supply of B-grade movie plot fodder? Those little things that they add instead of a plot that give it just enough of a hook to get your hair to stand on end and have ya looking out the corners of your eyes just to make sure someone isn’t watching? Hehehe. Urban myths & legends. History, both ancient and modern is full of this stuff. Handed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next, this is the stuff that the best of the B movies are made from.

Urban myths and legends can be best explained as cautionary or moralistic tales. Usually they are told by a comrade who believes the story. Often the circumstances are said to have happened to someone he knows or to an acquaintance of a friend or family member. Much like your standard B-grade movie they feature a cast of characters, a plotline, and a denouement. Urban myths & legends reflect our societal concerns and reinforce our view of the world as a big bad scary place. Serving as modern cautionary tales, they are passed along in both oral & written form. And despite the degree of skepticism usually exercised by most these days, this type of myth or legend is often believed because it has been passed on by a friend or co-worker as "the truth". While most of these legends are pure fabrication, a very rare few do have a basis in fact or actual events. You will find that many of these myths and legends go back a generation, and some as far as a century or beyond. And with each subsequent recitation the "facts" are overhauled to give it the proper context and window dressing for the current telling.

Okay - okay. You have to try one of my favorite relaxing visualizations (now for the scary peak inside my head)...take any one of these websites...choose any two or three legends...add several gallons of corn syrup & red food coloring...and oooo substitute a Hollywood type vampire for any one of the bad guys. VOLIA! Summer movie blockbuster! Now don’t forget the "evil" lighting and percussive soundtrack...if you are gonna do it - go all the way!

http://www.urbanlegends.com

This is the classic site - the one that has been around for more that a decade - and that has even become trendy due to some broadcast pop culture (read MTV) hype. With such classics as AIDS Mary, Alligators in Sewers, Toothbrushes on Vacation, you will definitely find something here you’ve heard or had emailed to you as the truth. Laid out in a well organized format by topic, urbanlegends.com will provide you with hours of legendary reading & entrainment. The site is also searchable (a big plus) and has depth to its archives I am particularly fond of the attention to detail here and ability smoke out the source of the legend instead of just passing it on in rote fashion.

http://www.warphead.com/urbanlegends

This site is not nearly as detailed or researched, but it is well organized and fun just the same. It too breaks the myths & legends down by categories and is great for short quick trips into the world of the bizarre. With categories like "the ugly truth" (yup, these are true facts - well at least reasonably true), "escaped lunatics (includes the classic "thump - thump - drag’) and "corpses & cadavers" you are bound to find much entertainment here a well. This site has the added bonus of having categories for "urban legends in film" and "from around the world" - quite a nice added touch.

http://66.165.133.65

This is kind of the garage band version of a myths & legends site. Hot tip here - any time you have an option here for music on this site - select OFF. The site has that ma / pa type feel even though it is commercially hosted. Organized in a categorical layout - much like the others - it does have a decent amount of depth to the site and they have done enough homework to give you the how’s & why’s in debunking the myths. Like any other of the more commercial sites, you do have to put up with any annoying amount of pops-ups interspersed with the available info. Ahh the price of the information age.

http://www.purportal.com/

Last but not least, this site gives you a quick easy method to debunk the bs. It provides a searchable link to several of the more popular urban myth & legends sites and even includes a search section for computer virus hoaxes. A nice added touch is the "headlines" section that keeps you up to the minutes on the current myths making the rounds.

So how about it? Have you created a vamp B-grade movie of your own? Maybe take the classic alligators-in-sewers myth, add in the new Coke marketing faux pas and add the classic body-in-mattress legend with a vampire twist. Works for me! Hey, let’s see who really knows their class B vamp movie trivia-name the movie. The decade is the 1960’s - writer is Carl Hittleman and the director is William "One Shot" Beaudine. This one is a B classic! It is a vampire western featuring what pair mentioned in the title?

Veritatem dies aperit.

LA / nodecaf

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Reviewed by: LA / nodecaf

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