MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE URBAN LEGEND

There really isn't a whole lot to say about Ron Masak as the police inspector. He basically plays the same sort of cop he did on "Murder, She Wrote" only with less personality and he has to solve the mystery on his own, which is clearly a challenge for this character. Masak's performance here is clearly an example of an actor just doing what is required of him and nothing more. Fortunately for him, virtually nothing is required of him other than just playing a cop investigating a series of bizarre murders, which he does as if he were teaching an acting class on how to play a run-of-the-mill cop in the movies. His entire role is nothing more than procedurals. No real emotion. No real characterization. No distinct personality. He is simply a befuddled cop.

Masak's performance is positively Shakespearean compared to ex-Magnum P.I. sidekick Larry Manetti's worthless buddy cop character. Unless Manetti came as part of a package deal with Kopell and Masak, I can think of no other reason why he's in the movie. His character serves no purpose. He shows up for two or three scenes where the two of them discuss the string of recent unexplained murders, cracks a few jokes so unfunny that it's hard to tell if they were even meant to be jokes, and then gives Masak a pep talk before vanishing from the film. The Stoneman doesn't kill him and he never really factors into the plot. It's as if Masak is playing police detective Pinocchio and Manetti is his over-the-hill, police uniform clad, thinner Jerry Mathers-looking Jiminy Cricket. At least Manetti gets the best line of the film when he says to Masak, "I'm from Brooklyn. What do I know about zombies?" Indeed.

As for Dennis Haskins, he has an even more thankless part than Manetti and considering how utterly worthless Manetti's role is that's saying something. You may remember Haskins as Mr. Belding on Saved by the Bell. Now imagine an angrier version of Mr. Belding but with a mustache. That's all there is to his role here as the grumpy university dean. He's barely in the movie and even when he's in the movie he's still barely in the movie, if you catch my drift. I was convinced ahead of time that his character would get killed by the Stoneman since grumpy academic types tend to get killed off in movies like this. Not only does he not meet his demise at the hands of the Stoneman, he never even appears in the same scene as it. Much like Manetti, his character just vanishes a third of the way into the movie never to be seen or heard from again.

And then there's former American Gladiator "Tower", aka Steve Henneberry, as the Stoneman. One thing is absolutely for sure; they did not blow the budget on the costume. The Stoneman himself would be a rather pitiful sight to behold if it weren't so damn laughable. His attire looks like any caveman costume you could rent from a costume shop and the full head mask he wears at times doesn't even look to be on good as I would have sworn it was close to popping off during a few excited moments when his head flopped around. The Stoneman ends up looking like a cross between Osama Bin Laden and Tommy Chong with Karl Malden's nose and dressed like Fred Flintstone. Just toss in a set of Billy Bob teeth and you got yourself a no-budget Neanderthal.

A scene from the classic horror film THE OAK RIDGE BOYS WALK AMONG US

The Stoneman's stone axe may have been the most expensive prop in the whole movie and even it looked to be made of plastic.

The movie itself opens with a couple walking out of a bar only to get bludgeoned to death by a bodiless arm slinging that stone axe. This scene is edited in such a disjointed, choppy manner that it actually looks and feels like it came straight out of a drive-in horror movie from the 1970s, the kind Al Adamson was so adept, or would that be inept, at making, so much so that I honestly expected the movie to pull back and reveal that this was actually a scene in a movie others were watching people.

That might not be such a coincidence considering I looked Ewing Miles Brown up on IMDB and it turns out that the man was one of the associate producers on the infamous Al Adamson turkey HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS. Brown's acting career also includes parts in such fifties b-movie fare as GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN and THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER. That information gave me a clearer picture as to why this movie turned out the way it did. Yes, yes, the pieces of the puzzle have begun making sense.

Anyway, that inexplicable, out of order, opening scene of carnage was just the set-up for the film's narrator to chime in and begin the non-stop blabbing he will do throughout the rest of the film. This guy does a hell of a lot of narrating. He begins by telling us that he wants to tell us a story that we're probably going to find impossible to believe, and no, it isn't any of the behind the scenes stuff that went down regarding this film. God, what I would have given for a director/cast commentary track for this DVD.

We quickly come to learn that this narrator is Professor Fitzgerald of the mathematics department at the nameless California college where much of the movie is set. Why they chose to make the narrator of this fantastic tale of prehistoric terror run amok in our modern times a math professor as opposed to say a history professor or anthropology professor is something only Ewing Miles Brown knows.

"Now you listen right here, you little snot nosed bastards. You're going to listen to my little caveman story and dammit, you are gonna like it! You got that, bucko?"

My original theory on the whole reason for the narrator character was that they needed someone to tie together this patchwork movie because certain key scenes and dialogue never actually got filmed. Without the narrator setting the scene, telling us what is going on, or what has transpired in between a few select scenes, I suspect the movie would be even more incomprehensible than it already is. At least with this narrator there is some sense as to what in the hell is going on. Now that was my theory until I saw the closing credits and realized that our narrator was in fact director Ewing Miles Brown himself leading me to suspect he just wanted a beefed up, on camera role. In retrospect, it was probably a little from Column A, and a little from Column B.

Anyway, our pipe-smoking narrator wants to tell us his story and so it's off to the Amazon. At least I think it's supposed to be the Amazon. It's a rainforest, that's all that matters. As far as I'm concerned it's the Amazon. This jungle rainforest is brought to life through a combination of safari stock footage just like they used to do in the jungle movies of yesteryear and an artificial jungle set that looks like it came straight out of Gilligan's Island. Our legally required by the laws of cinema Caucasian in make-up masquerading as a native tribesman bares such a striking resemblance to Chris Kattan it's scary. He discovers the body of a prehistoric caveman resting comfortably in about three-feet of water.

Chris Kattan in CRAPA NUI

Our only explanation for the perfect condition of the body will be a little later when Morita tosses out something about the chemicals in the bog perfectly preserving the corpse, a little factoid his character will casually toss out in such a nonchalant manner that clearly the screenwriter just wanted to get this little bit of BS out of the way as quickly as possible and never dwell on it again, a fact that seems especially strange considering much of the dialogue in this movie will consist of people asking questions and dwelling on such things for long periods of time.

Before you know it, the Amazonian caveman is whisked away to the Los Angeles campus of Unnamed California University (U.C.U.), home of the national championship football team "The Fightin' Whatchamacallits", where it rests inside a huge, elevated crate in the center of a dimly lit storage room. Except for the ones playing cops, all the principal players are in attendance, including the narrator. This is the only non-narration scene where the narrator appears. Morita is the anthropology professor that has flown the caveman's corpse to the college so that he can let it rest in this giant crate sitting wide open in the center of the room without benefit of refrigeration where, logically speaking, it should begin decomposing rapidly. If nothing else, the level of funk in the air should be unbearable.

Kopell, another professor and a professional rival of Morita's, is convinced it's a fake and persistently mocks Morita in a tone of voice suitable to an especially snooty member of early 20th century aristocracy. Haskins is the gruff university dean, who doesn't do much of anything in this scene other than act gruff while mediating the verbal sparring of Morita and Kopell and harping on about the importance of the school's prestige not being tarnished in any way, shape, or form. Riker is yet another professor and she doesn't waste any time trading barbs with L.A. reporter Atkins the very moment the two are introduced thus signifying future romance. Morita unveils his amazing find, Kopell scoffs some more, and we pretty much continue going in circles until later that evening when everyone has gone home except for one assistant professor. He becomes the Stoneman's first victim upon awakening, most likely due to the fact that a former television actor did not play him.

Director Brown clearly believes in getting everyone in the scene in the shot all at once. This will become evident throughout the movie as people are packed into the frame like sardines. The sets may have been small but they are not that small. Either Ewing Miles Brown is a really, really bad director or had become senile in his old age by the time he got around to making THE STONEMAN.

"Okay, everyone, for this next shot I am going to need all of you to squeeze in as tight as humanly possible! Closer! Closer! Closer! Closer! Just a little more! Not quite! Almost! Closer! Look , just climb on top of one another in you have to! Use the ladder if need be!"

Virtually everyone from the previous scene is back again the next day as Masak makes his first appearance as the lead investigator. Pretty much repeat the same exact scene we already saw only with a dead body involved, a missing caveman corpse, a befuddled police investigator, Kopell insinuating that Morita did it because he knew he was about to be exposed as a fraud, and Haskins even more concerned about the school's reputation especially when it comes to how this story will be handled in the press, which Atkins vows to portray in a good light in exchange for getting the exclusive rights to the story.

I'm convinced someone tricked Ron Masak into appearing by convincing him that it was actually going to be some sort of murder mystery/police procedural with him in the lead. That's the only theory I can come up with to explain the numerous, and I do mean numerous, scenes of him going over the intricate details of the case as if this were an Agatha Christie novel. He will do so in scene after scene until the third act when he finally comes to believe that the caveman came to life and is killing people. Treating these events as a mystery would be perfectly fine if there was actually any mystery but we all know the resurrected Stoneman is behind the murders. There's no mystery here and yet we're subjected to no shortage of scenes that consist of nothing more than a bewildered Masak going over the facts in intricate details, sometimes with Morita, Atkins, and Riker, and other times with Manetti, whose character I would consider to be Dr. Watson to Masak's Sherlock Holmes if not for the fact that he up and vanishes a third of the way in never to be heard from again.

Maybe the check bounced? Maybe Manetti and Haskins just said, "Screw this!" and went home? What the hell happened to their characters? Now that's a real mystery.

After those initial scenes set in the university warehouse and until the final act, the movie will consist of five different kinds of scenes repeated over and over and over with only minor variations to the plot mechanics and type of dialogue spoken in them. They are:

1) Narrator scenes. One thing I began to notice is that it did not appear as if they filmed his scenes all at the same time because unless my eyes deceived me the contents of the study where he would be shown appeared to change a few times and the lighting would seem to indicate that some were filmed during the day and others at night with no concern for continuity. I couldn't help but be amused that the narrator's study looked more professional than Morita and Masak's offices in the movie. His looks like a real place. Heck, it was probably filmed in Ewing Miles Brown's real life home for all I know. All Morita and Masak got was a generic wall with a door and bare minimum furniture and trimmings.

2) Scenes involving the trio of Morita, Atkins, and Riker discussing and theorizing where the Stoneman might strike next and how they plan to capture him alive, punctuated with some verbal sparring between the two potential lovebirds. Some of these scenes will involve Masak later on, in which case it turns into him theorizing about the case with Morita, who will attempt to no avail to convince him that the prehistoric man has actually come back to life. Kopell will occasionally be involved to exchange unpleasantries with Morita and Haskins will pop in one last time to once again restate the importance of the university not being portrayed in a negative light. The majority of these scenes are set in Morita's threadbare office, but late in the film they will also take place in a car and a diner. One of the car scenes is especially amusing because the three of them are driving around the city with Morita riding shotgun, literally. He's in the backseat with a shotgun in his lap that could be easily seen by anyone. Even in L.A. and even if it's only armed with tranquilizer darts I'd like to think that would at least get the cop's attention.

3) Scenes set in Masak's threadbare office in police headquarters (you never see any part of the police station outside the office) where he discusses the case, usually with Manetti in painstaking detail. Other times, Masak will be on the phone having a conversation regarding the murders with someone whose voice we do not hear. In one particular scene, for reasons that will forever remain a mystery, a young cadet enters his office so they can have a brief but perplexing conversation about the phones not working properly. Why? What does this have to do with anything? How does it affect the plot in any way?

4) Scenes set at the crime scenes where Masak examines the body, converses with other cops, further theorizes about the murder in question, and interviews witnesses. When he interviews a witness we get to hear it in its entirety even though the person is just repeating exactly what we just saw only blander. One or two of these scenes involve Manetti and most will eventually involve Morita, Riker, and Atkins. When those three show up they begin playing out the exact same scenes again they've already done inside Morita's office.

5) Scenes of the Stoneman stalking, attacking, and killing people. Or wandering around and peeping through the bushes at someone before stalking, attacking, and killing them. Variety is not the spice of this guy's life.

Okay, let's recap the scenes of Stoneman carnage, not counting the random double homicide that opened the film, since that is the whole point of the movie to begin with, I think.

Victim #1: The assistant professor examining the body fails to notice the corpse in the crate is lifting up its arm to strangle him. The Stoneman nabs him by the throat, rises to its feet, and that's all we see. When we next see his corpse, his throat appears to have been slashed. They keep describing the wounds on the various victims in the movie as looking like they were made with teeth as if something chewed the flesh, which would be perfectly plausible if the people in charge of make-up effects hadn't just made it look like the guy's throat was slashed with a knife. Yes, his throat was chewed in a straight line across his neck. Brilliant deduction.

Victim #2: It wouldn't be a slasher movie without horny youngsters making out in a car. Sure enough, the Stoneman has wandered out to the hills on the outskirts of the city where he makes clear his position on premarital sex by promptly killing the boy and ripping his arm off. In fact, the Stoneman walks off with the guy's severed arm, possibly for a midnight snack or to use as a back scratcher. It's never specified which. He never bothers with the girl instead just leaving her to scream hysterically.

This murder is also followed up with an ungodly long five-minute nighttime manhunt through the woods as the cops search for Stoneman. They never meet up and the big punchline for the scene is the cops draw their guns only for a cat to walk out of the bushes.

Tonight's episode of Celebrity Staredown: Michael J. Pollard vs. Victor French

Victim #3: Some guy is taking out the trash at his apartment complex and ends up face to face with the Stoneman. They circle each other like prize fighters for a few moments having a tense battle of "Made You Blink" before the Stoneman grabs him by the neck and we hear some chomping noises.

Victim #4: Technically, this one would qualify as a potential victim since she's the one that gets away. The Stoneman goes after a woman heading to her front door and she pepper sprays him several times. This scene is easily the highlight of the film because for one thing the whole sequence was senselessly filmed in slow motion. I would assume that the use of slow motion was an attempt to make things a bit more dramatic except it's so obvious the woman in the scene is laughing hysterically the entire time they filmed it leading me to believe Brown actually did it in slow motion in a desperate attempt to try and make it less obvious that the actress was having a giggle fit. It doesn't work and by doing so, what should only be about a 30 second scene ends up going on for about two minutes. That's plenty of time to notice she's grinning like an idiot. I'm guessing this wasn't an actual actress they hired but a relative or a friend they got to appear for free or as a favor. Again, does it say more about the woman playing the part or the filmmaker that kept the scene in the movie of an actress obviously laughing during a scene in which she's supposed to be terrified?

Behold the toothy grin of total terror!

If that wasn't bad enough, the woman makes it into her apartment and proceeds to call the cops. The Stoneman ends up beating on her door but is unable to break the door down. You'd think being a Neanderthal he'd at least be superhumanly strong. He quickly gets tired and goes away.

One thing you got to love is how the movie kept coming up with excuses for not having everyone, particularly Masak's character, immediately believe the Stoneman has come back to life. Not long after the first two murders Kopell reveals that some animal rights group freed some wolves from the zoo or something along those lines and they were most likely responsible. People buy into this theory. The girl in the car witnessed the Stoneman firsthand but was unable to speak afterwards because what she saw "snapped her mind" so there goes that. Then there's the woman in the apartment who was shown making a phone call one would presume would be to the police. I'm fairly certain a description of the suspect would pretty much make the obvious clear to everyone. I guess she must have just called the narrator to tell him what happened because he's the only one that ever comments on the incident and there's still skepticism on the part of Masak and Kopell even after this scene.

Victim #5: The Stoneman spies on some street corner hookers from the bushes. When one is alone standing under a street lamp, he casually strolls up to her, smashes her face in with the stone axe, and carries her body off. Where he carried her body off to be anybody's guess. Also anyone's guess, how come nobody saw any of this go down on a street in Los Angeles?

Victim #6: Another woman is attacked in her car by the Stoneman who busts out her driver's side window, grabs her by the throat, and strangles her to death in exactly four seconds. A woman in an upstairs apartment hears the racket and calls the cops. By the way, when the Stoneman walks around the back of the car I couldn't help but notice something odd for which an explanation was never provided.

Okay, so like, uh, who broke that back window? Elves? The Tooth Fairy? Jesus?

Victim #7: A squad car pulls up moments later, the cop gets out and draws his gun, and the Stoneman tomahawks him with the stone axe.

Just about every police officer shown in the movie looks to be of the geriatric variety. According to this movie, the L.A.P.D. consists of cops that look to be either past the mandatory retirement age or young rookies. This too leads to me suspect that Ewing Miles Brown just cast every person he knew in the minor roles.

I also can't help but to notice that practically every female in the movie other than the young girl in the make-out scene is a redhead. Not sure if that's a coincidence or if Mr. Brown just has a preference.

And for some reason, Morita refers to the Stoneman as "big guy" quite a few times. "Big guy" seems like a rather unscientific term to be used by such a serious man of science like himself.

So we finally arrive at the third act and after an eternity of doubt Masak's slow-witted police detective is willing to buy into the possibility of a caveman on the loose. This takes us to a biker bar where the Stoneman casually strolls in unnoticed by anyone until he bumps a table and an instant brawl erupts. Just like in real life.

Things got out of hand at the Motorhead concert

Masak, Morita, Atkins, Riker, and some extraneous cops all arrive at the bar and observe the bedlam as the spazzing Stoneman hurls bikers all over the place. Morita attempts to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun but ends up getting bumped causing him to shoot one of the bikers instead. Then from out of nowhere, a fist comes from off-camera and clocks Riker right across the face knocking her unconscious. For all I know that might have been a batshit crazy Ewing Miles Brown taking a cheap shot at the actress just for the hell of it. Atkins has to carry her out of the bar. The Stoneman just turns around and walks towards the back of the bar and the next thing you know we're told he escaped - by just walking towards the back of the bar. Ummm… yeah… I'm sure Ed Wood is smiling somewhere in heaven, Al Adamson too.

The Coors Corporation would like to make it abundantly clear that they do not support and/or endorse the motion picture THE STONEMAN in any way, shape, or form; nor do they recommed that any person living or dead attempt to watch THE STONEMAN in part or in its entirety without at least having several of their fine products handy at all times.

It's back to Morita's office for one last groupthink session. Something to do with mapping all of his attacks and a proximity to where he's probably staying, which is especially illogical given that we've never seen anything indicating the Stoneman has a lair or even sleeps for that matter. In a bit of oddball direction that again convinces me that Brown must have been going senile at the time, he has Morita and Atkins standing at the map while Riker is forced to change seats in order to get back into the shot. To do so she has to quickly pass in front of them and in doing so her body language and facial expression is like that of someone in the audience at a play or a live presentation of some sort trying to make their way to their seat without making any noise or disturbing the people talking. I've never seen anything like it before in any movie I've ever seen in my life.

"If you and I hideout here for a couple of days the director should never be able to find us and that way we can get the hell out of this... Ah, crap! He's behind us right now, isn't he?"

Long story short, the dynamic trio along with special guest dynamo Masak end up in the woods outside the city at night where they believe the Stoneman is residing. Kopell is still convinced its all a fraud and shows up armed with a camera positive he's going to catch Morita and his fake caveman in the act or something like that. Morita is the first to come across the Stoneman but hadn't bothered to load his tranquilizer gun. Doing so gives Kopell time to move in with the camera snapping pictures and screaming about exposing the truth. This is yet another one of those schizophrenic scenes as I will now convey by paraphrasing the sequence of events. It went a little something like this.

Kopell: You're finished! You're done! I'm going to expose you and your fake caveman for the fraud that you are!

The flash photography aggravates the Stoneman who begins swinging blindlywith his stone axe though still nowhere near where Kopell is standing. Kopell immediately throws up his hands in fright and begins screaming like a woman.

Kopell: Save me! He's going to kill me! Oh, please help me!

Morita loads the gun and proceeds to accidentally shoot Kopell with the tranquilizer dart. Kopell makes a funny face and collapses. The Stoneman skulks off. Morita just stands there.

The only thing missing from that scene is a superimposed shot of Bela Lugosi yelling, "Pull the string! Pull the string!"

So anyway, the Stoneman eventually decides to pull a King Kong by snatching Riker and carrying her around the woods in a fireman's carry position while everyone gives chase.

When it comes to sex, the word "no" is not in Gimli's vocabulary.

The final showdown has the Stoneman cornered on a high, seaside cliff. I bet you can already guess what's going to happen. If you can't then you clearly haven't seen enough b-movies in your lifetime.

The Stoneman only agreed to release Robin Riker in exchange for the cast member that most closely resembled Barney Rubble. It was a tough call.

Atkins and Masak approach from the sides and Morita can't get a clear shot because the Stoneman is now holding Riker hostage in much the same way the villain would on a cop show. Remember now, the plan is to take the Stoneman alive. Morita still can't get a clean shot even though any idiot would be able to easily make the shot given the amount of room between her and the Stoneman so Masak and Atkins start yelling at it in order to distract him. Actually, Masak yells at the Stoneman while Atkins quite literally begins barking at it. I'd say Atkins pisses away what little dignity he had left in this film but he never had any to begin with and it's obvious he's having a blast in this scene. Morita fires and the Stoneman yanks the dart out immediately. Atkins picks it up from the ground and insists he can jab it back into the guy. Masak tells him this is their last chance or else he'll have no choice but to use live ammo killing him. Atkins makes a running leap and jabs the dart in the back of his neck. Personally, if I was making this movie, I'd have established earlier that Atkins' character was a championship darts player and had him make some bullseye shot but that would have been too imaginative for this movie. The Stoneman instantly becomes woozy, lets Riker go, and promptly topples backwards off the cliff to its death.

Sarcasm Alert: Wow, I didn't see that coming from a thousand miles away!

Everyone looks down, Morita mumbles something about it being a shame because there was so much we could have learned from "big guy", and they turn walking to the camera. Our narrator pops up one last time to wrap up his little story and the movie then awkwardly cuts back to a jittery still shot of the characters walking towards the camera. The music begins and closing credits role. So why the hell is the narrator still talking and we even hear the sound of him fiddling with that damn pipe of his? It's like it cut to the credits too soon before the final narrations scene had finished. He's still rambling on for a few seconds more telling us that the pics the Kopell character took proved the whole story to be true (Because after all, who could possibly fake photos of a guy in a caveman costume?) and if they found one then there was always the chance of they could find another Stoneman out there. I think that last line was meant to leave the door open for a potential sequel but I can safely say that the odds of you and I finding a living prehistoric man are greater than the odds of there ever being a sequel to THE STONEMAN.

"Now look Mr. Miyagi, just because the idiot director told us all to get as close to one another as humanly possible doesn't mean you have my permission to start playing grab ass."

I swear this is one for the ages. The movie is underwritten and overwritten all at the same time. There's so little actual plot yet so many unimportant details included. In screenwriting classes they teach you to cut out the extraneous stuff. I'd reckon about 75% of the film's dialogue consists of extraneous stuff. I'd almost wager that a lot of the dialogue was made up on the spot except I can't help but to believe that these actors could have come up with better dialogue than the stuff they were forced to recite. The screenwriter's name is Jack Neal. I wonder if he'd ever actually seen a movie before he wrote this, his first script.

The weirdest thing is that THE STONEMAN feels like it should have been a silly kiddie flick but the cast is too old, the tone of the film plays it straight, and there's a bit of gore tossed in so it clearly wasn't intended for little kids. THE STONEMAN is essentially a tame slasher movie version of the 1960's rock'n'roll teenage caveman flick EEGAH! only the hotrodding teenagers have been replaced with well past their prime former television and movie actors and the musical interludes have been replaced with long scenes of police investigation.

What the hell was this movie supposed to be? A horror without the horror? A mystery without the mystery? A throwback to the drive-in movies of the past without any of the qualities that made those movies fun to watch?

It's kind of hard for me to give any sort of real opinion on the movie because it's terrible yet the train wreck aspect of the production makes it somewhat tolerable. I could never recommend anyone seek out a copy but it's almost worth seeking out just as a curiosity. It's a mess on every single level and the lack of post-production work just makes the experience of watching the movie all the more novel.

If anyone out there knows the backstory on this film and just what the hell went so horribly wrong behind the scenes I'd love to know.

The good news for those that might actually want to check out THE STONEMAN is that the DVD can be found online for around $10. Yeah, still a bit pricey but given the stellar post-production work but I'm convinced that aspect along with the cast and the sheer badness of the film itself could make this a potential bad movie must see. And I'm 1,000,000% positive you'll never see this movie on TV anywhere considering the dubious quality of the print. Hey, even the Sci-Fi Channel has to draw the line somewhere.

IN MEMORY OF THE CAREERS OF EVERYONE LISTED There's still always TV Land and VH1. They just love C-list celebs.

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE ENCINO MAN