Once upon a time there was this guy named Alfred Hitchcock. John Ottman, Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson -- the director and writers of Urban Legends: Final Cut -- have, apparently, heard of him. And it seems like they thought it would be really nifty to use him as a reference point in their movie about a group of student filmmakers who keep getting knocked off. "Reference point" is putting it kindly. After all, Hitchcock was an artist and that is a moniker, which is sadly out of place herein.

Still, you'd never know it reading the production notes for the movie. The filmmakers seem to think they were making something rather highbrow with producer Gina Matthews referring loosely to the film as a "smart thriller." Hmmm. Why don't you be the judge? Picture an austere college campus (the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired architecture of Canadian Trent University is the only spooky thing in the movie) and put pretty senior film student Amy (Jennifer Morrison) in the middle of it. Add a motley crew of fellow film students, all competing for the prestigious Hitchcock Award for the best senior thesis film.

Now, poor Amy has been struggling to come up with a concept for her movie for months and she finally gets a killer of an idea (pardon the pun) after talking to campus security guard Reese (Loretta Devine back from the first film) about an urban legend. Wow, thinks Amy, I'll make a movie about people getting killed in urban legend-y ways. Amazingly, Professor Solomon (Hart Bochner) thinks this is a fabulous idea (right, a serial killer "thesis" film), so Amy starts shooting the murder scenarios. (By the way, no chance in hell that this girl will win the Hitchcock.) Oddly, these all-too-brief references are the only elements that pass for "urban legends" in the film, except for the first immensely gory and never again referenced murder.

Murder, though, is the word of the day and, soon enough, students start dropping like flies. The first to go is uber-film student Travis (Matthew Davis), who commits suicide when his film gets a C-. Bye, bye Hitchcock Award. And speaking of Hitch, here are the only two real references in the entire film -- Travis kills himself in the school clock tower and, soon after, his twin brother Trevor (same actor, worse acting) shows up to look into his bro's death. Aside from these obsequious nods to Vertigo, the Hitchcock comparisons end there. It's a plain enough fact that neither director John Ottman (who also serves as composer and editor) nor writers Boardman and Derrickson have the style, subtlety or sinister humor of old Alfred. Thus, the series of murders that fall into place -- with Amy and Trevor serving as campus Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy -- are neither spooky nor suspenseful nor clever in any way, shape or form. And, despite a few honestly funny bits of dialogue, you tend to spend more time laughing at the movie than with it.

And then there's the whole movie-within-a-movie scenario, which the filmmakers seem to believe is just about the coolest device ever used. It's an urban legend, inside an urban legend, inside an…. Suffice it to say that the old "breaking of the fourth wall" idea is in full swing here, supposedly making us wonder what is real and what isn't. Tired as it is, it's not much of a gimmick. As for the murders on a film set, that too is a bit long in the tooth. Didn't we just see this basic concept, with all the accompanying movie references, in Scream III? The answer is a resounding yes and it gives one pause when the producers of this film claim that the pitch offered by writers Broadman and Derrickson was "highly original." Compared to what?

Start to finish, Urban Legends: Final Cut is as paltry an excuse for a horror film as you'll ever see, made by people who appear to have no understanding of what's really scary. Indeed, if we're lucky, film students may even study it someday as an example of how not to bring the genre to life. The only thing scary about this movie is that it got made.