An Introduction to the Study of Urban Legends and Popular Cinema

1
An Introduction to the Study of Urban Legends and
Popular Cinema

• Dr. Mikel J. Koven
• University of Worcester

2
Studying Urban Legend films

• Unlike other folktale forms, specifically the
  Märchen, straightforward film adaptations of
  urban legends is difficult
• We as analysts need to know the general
  corpus of urban legendary in order to know when
  we find the stories in film
• We also need to know the general morphologies
  folklorists use to study the urban legend in
  order to explore potential cites of newly
  emerging legends
• Not just about knowing the stories, but also
  knowing when something smells and perhaps
  functions like a legend

3
Embedded Narratives

• Since urban legends tend to be quite short, they
  can often be included in popular films as
  narrative asides or embedded action
• Embedded as dialogue (Night Moves)
• Embedded as action (ostension) (Gremlins)

4
Embedded Narratives

• Need to be diligent for urban legend examples in
  non-folklore films (not specifically about
  folklore subjects/ narratives)
• Dialogic narratives where the urban legends are
  spoken within the dialogue
• Ostensive narratives where the urban legend is
  demonstrated in the film as action
• Meatballs sitting around the campfire telling
  the hook story (dialogic) Tripper finishes the
  story by showing that his hand is actually a hook
  to scare the other counsellors (ostensive)

5
Single Strand Narratives

• Films which attempt adaptation of a single urban
  legend into a 90-minute film.
• Because of the relative shortness of the legend
  stories (again, unlike the Märchen), a single
  urban legend is usually insufficient for a
  feature length film
• Short films based on single legends Liz Adams
  Side Effect version of The Hippy Babysitter

6
Extended Narratives

• The most common form of single-strand narrative
  is the extended narrative
• This takes the legend as its starting point, and
  then extends the narrative further by showing
  what happened next or what the repercussions
  were
• When a Stranger Calls (1979) takes as its
  starting place the babysitter and the man
  upstairs story and then follows the characters 7
  years later
• Remake (2006) doesnt try to extend the narrative
  like the original, but draws out the story to a
  full 87 minutes.
• The Curve/Dead Mans Curve (1998) extends the
  story of the Suicide Rule to explore the
  repercussions of murdering ones roommate and
  trying to make it look like suicide

7
Resultant Narratives

• Where the film narratives gives the background
  story to the urban legend
• The events leading up to the legend
• Legend is almost the punchline to the story,
  the revelation of what the film narrative
  actually was
• Paradise Lost/Turistas (2006)

8
I Know What You Did Last Summer (Gillespie, 1997)

• An interesting variant on the resultant narrative
  structure
• Four teens are hunted down by a hook-carrying
  murder who blames them for the hit-and-run death
  the previous summer
• Prior to that fatal accident, the four are
  sitting telling urban legends around a campfire
  and tell The Hook
• So does the hook-carrying killer evolve out of
  the hook-handed killer story (resultant
  narrative)? But then why do they already know
  this story?
• Precognitive resultant narrative?

9
Structuring Narratives

• The urban legend acts as a structuring framework
  for the films narrative
• Dead Man on Campus (1998) comedy which uses the
  suicide rule legend
• Various comic scenarios from trying to find a
  suitably suicidal roommate
• Legend provides the framework, the comedy fleshes
  it out

10
Fusion Narratives

• One urban legend narrative is rarely enough to
  pad out a full feature
• Where two urban legends are fused together to
  extend the narrative
• Any more legends included and the film becomes
  multi-stranded, but a fusion of two still works
  for a (largely) single stranded narrative
• Alligator (1980) fuses the Alligator in the
  Sewers with the Pet abductions for medical
  experiments legend (to explain how the
  sewer-gators mutated

11
Multi-Strand Narratives

• Several urban legend narratives used in a
  combination of the narrative strategies outlined
  previously
• Can either be anthology/ portmanteau films
• Or in multiple fusion narratives
• Wherein multiple legend texts (more than two) are
  fused, in diverse ways some dialogic, some
  ostensive to create the overall feature film
  narrative

12
Urban Legend (Banks, 1998)

• Uses a combination of ostensive and dialogic
  urban legend narratives
• Typical teen slasher film (post-Scream)
• Main structuring narrative serial killer using
  urban legend recreations as MO
• Killer in the Backseat, Arent you glad you
  didnt turn on the lights, The Boyfriends
  Death, On-air murder, Kidney Theft
• Ostensive motifs

13
Ostensive and dialogic UL motifs

• While the killer is using urban legends to murder
  the students at Pendleton College, other UL
  motifs circulate within the film
• Ostensive Bloody Mary, Pop Rocks Coke,
  The Death Car, Dog Exploded in Microwave,
  Car-Lights Initiation
• Dialogic (legends discussed) University
  Cover-ups of Campus Murders, Spider Eggs in
  bubblegum, Richard Gere the Gerbil,
  Babysitter and the Man Upstairs
• Dialogic/Ostensive told, but told as action
  baby aspirin used to replace birth-control pills,
  unusual sexual position causes partners to get
  stuck, etc.

14
Candyman (Rose, 1992)

• Another multiple fusion narrative
• Also mixes ostensive dialogic motifs
• We hear (dialogic) the Hippy Babysitter,
  Alligators in the Sewers
• We see (ostensive) Razorblades found in
  Halloween candy, Killer bees, even an odd echo
  of both Gelert and the Choking Doberman
• We hear and see (dialogic/ostensive) both the
  Candyman story (based on Bloody Mary) and
  Child Emasculated in Bathroom
• Candyman himself is both a revenant and the
  Hook-handed killer as well as a male variant
  of Bloody Mary
• Unlike Urban Legend, this film is more unified as
  a narrative

15
Anthology/Portmanteau films

• Fairly self-evident an urban legend is used as
  one (or more) of the stories in portmanteau films
• Nightmares (1983) Terror in Topanga is The
  Killer in the Backseat
• Campfire Tales (1997) is slightly more
  interesting all the stories are ULs
• Framing narrative of campfire tales
• The Hook, The Boyfriends Death, The
  Vanishing Hitchhiker
• Fusion narratives Shannons Friend fused with
  Humans Can Lick Too

16
In Summary

• Embedded narratives
• Dialogic
• Ostensive
• Single-strand narratives
• Extended Narratives
• Resultant Narratives
• Structuring Narratives
• Fusion Narratives
• Multi-strand narratives
• Fusion Narratives
• Anthologies/Portmanteau films

17
Thank you.