10 Heart Stopping Horror Movie Chase Scenes You Can't Forget
3. Urban Legend (1998)
Today, Tara Reid is probably best known for appearing in all six of the SyFy's Sharknado movies. But some two decades ago, Reid was the protégé of producer Neal H. Moritz, who quickly rose up the Hollywood ladder producing horror films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, its 1998 sequel and, of course, Urban Legend.
Urban Legend takes us to the campus of Pendleton University, where we meet our usual brand of quirky students planning a party to commemorate a massacre that once took place there. However, the appearance of a parka-clad killer within the halls puts everyone's lives at risk. One by one, students and teachers are hunted down and murdered in brutal ways that emulate the urban legends of old.
Having been impressed with Tara Reid's performance in The Big Lebowski, Moritz opted to cast her in the small but pivotal role of Sasha in Urban Legend. Moritz's original choice, Sarah Michelle Gellar, decided to bow out due to a heavy workload. Why you getting this history lesson, you might ask? Well, because Tara Reid's epic chase scene in Urban Legend may just be her pinnacle as an actress, displaying just how much she was capable of.
Reid's character of Sasha is the wonderfully written ditsy campus radio DJ, and it is at the radio station where we are treated to one hell of a game of cat and mouse between Reid and the killer. Tara's Sasha screams her heart out with passion (and a seemingly endless supply of tears) as she dodges blows from a double-headed axe left and right. The ultimate tense moment comes as poor Sasha hangs perilously over a railing and must either let go and fall an entire storey, or lose her fingers. The scene even has time to repeat the pesky elevator trick mentioned in the previous entry, as Reid is cornered and forced back into her radio booth.
One can't help but feel crushing disbelief as the door shuts and the killer's gaping maw advances as Reid pleads "I don't want to die...".