Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Ah, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", my favorite TV show of all time. You know, it's weird how came across it. I've always loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie, and I just thought they were going to play the movie on TV, but when it was a TV show, I was shocked. But I was hooked.

Onto the movie. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about a dumb blonde bimbo who lives with her rich but neglectful parents in sunny L.A. and is the most popular girl in school with her snobby friends and basketball star boyfriend. But all that changes when Buffy finds out that she is the "chosen one" who is destined to kill the vampires. Donald Sutherland plays Merrick, her watcher and trainer who is always in a trench coat and hat. When Buffy finally excepts her fate, she starts to loose it all, her friends, her cheer leading activities, her boyfriend, and life in general. She is also risking her life every single night and can't tell anyone about her being a slayer because it might endanger their lives. But there is one man, Luke Perry, or as we know him to be Pike. He is just your typical stoner teen, but when he meets Buffy and his best friend is turned into a vampire, everything changes. He, Merrick, and Buffy team together to fight the forces of darkness and one armless Pee Wee Herman.

This is just a fun movie. No, it's Oscar material, but it's just a good movie to watch for a good laugh. You have to admit the death of Pee Wee's character was just too hilarious. The acting, come on! It's a teen flick, and we've got a very young Hilary Swank. We all have to start somewhere. Just have fun, and watch the series too!

8/10

Fmovies: This was written, directed and acted as a teen-comic romp but I can't help thinking of Robin Williams complaint to a comedy club in, was it, Vancouver, BC? "I did the same act before Mork and you hated me!" Looking back, what did we have here? A stellar cast and crew! Joss Whedon writing, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens (playing the dark side of Pee-Wee Herman), then teen-idol Luke Perry (doing an impressive James Dean, or does he always act that way), Hilary Swank, Thomas Jane, and some very special acting from David Arquette, and I believe it is Sasha Jensen, who played newbie vampires either euphorically, or invincibly ~ both being reasonable positions when you discover you now have unbelievable powers. Oh, and did you see Ben Affleck and Seth Green? They aren't credited but they're in there.

Stephen Root baffles me here because of a striking resemblance to Randy Quaid but his role as the completely socially-detached school principal was something I could see Quaid doing. Some reviewers are obviously ahead of me on that one.

If the movie isn't already a cult classic, it will be! It would be a mistake to view this film as a serious horror. It is a definite spin on the vampire genre, but neither corn-ball or excessively violent.. instead the movie plays it as a subtle comedy. The only truly hammy scene comes when Paul Reubens gets staked and then it was so deliberate I can't fault it but rather cherish it.

Very sharp cinematography. One clear homage to Lost Boys. Scenes that I will never forget simply because they could never happen in real life (thinking especially of "Benny").

Lastly, Kristy Swanson, definitely in fine athletic form, with some of her own cart-wheels and a clear transformation from valley-girl into someone who suddenly sees the big picture.

It's a real shame that more people dont see this movie for the gem that it is. People see it and brand it as stupid, when they should just sit back and enjoy it for all its touching, funny, campy greatness. Totally different from the TV show, but they are both great! And this movie gets a big plus for having Hilary Swank (Boy's Don't Cry) in it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fmovies. I am a big fan of all movies that portray ditzy blonds as the heroes, showing the world just how much we can do! I really enjoyed Buffy, especially since I am not a big horror fan and this movie lightened the scare with humor! I think that Kristy Swanson is a great heroine for bumbling blonds! She is a modern day Jean Arthur!

I first saw this movie back in 1992 when it was first released, and I thought it was good campy fun, nothing more. When I began watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV series, and saw Joss Whedon's true vision for the story, I realize he must have been furious at how the studio basically rewrote his script. If you are a Buffy fan and you have never seen the movie, it is worthwhile from a historical standpoint to see all of the contrasts.

The movie's Buffy, played by Kristy Swanson, is a tall large girl as opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar's petite Buffy. In the movie, Buffy's mother is a boozing socialite with little time or patience for Buffy and their family appears affluent, as opposed to TV's all-American middle-class mom Joyce. Also in the movie, all victims of vampires become vampires themselves and when vampires are "staked" they do not turn to dust as they do in the series, but leave behind a pesky corpse. Of course, the watcher who first tells Buffy of her calling is not the Giles of the series, but regardless of that, he does not have any of the characteristics of a watcher as we have come to know them on the series. Also, the lead vampire, played by Rutger Hauer, is not the least bit scary. Instead he is more like a villain out of the equally campy Batman TV series.

There is also no mention of vampires lacking a soul. There are a few moments in the movie, though, that have at least the ring of Whedon's brand of humor. What comes to my mind in that category is after Buffy has staked a large number of teen vampires that have invaded her high school dance, the principal is going around putting detention slips on all of the staked teen vampires' corpses as punishment for disrupting the event. This seems very much like something principal Snyder of Sunnydale high school would have done.

First off I have to say my review of this movie may be somewhat coloured by my adoration of the television series. Despite sharing a few superficial elements - a character called Buffy who slays vampires and who has a watcher - the two are quite distinctive (even if Joss Whedon penned them both).

"Buffy" here is very much played with a tongue-in-cheek. It's Clueless meets Dracula. Buffy and her cohorts are shallower than an evaporated puddle and Buffy can only learn to grow up when heaped with the responsibility of being the Chosen One, destined to slay vampires. The vampires in question are just people with white faces played up in quite a camp manner and bare little resemblance to the sharp, wise, smart vampires favored by both the TV series and other movies.

There's no acting of any note and the plot is wet-paper thin. The direction isn't memorable... so what stops the movie getting a 0 or a 1? The humour. The movie is played for laughs, taking a bit of a dig at pop culture and vampire lore. There's some great lines in it - particularly the "kill him A LOT!" line. Watch the coach at the basketball game for similar humour, and there is an unforgettable vampire staking towards the movie end that's very amusing.

The movie looks like it was shot on a shoe-string budget (adding to the camp tongue-in-cheek parody feel) and has none of the production values we'd see Whedon employ later on. What it does have is a sometimes very amusing line in black humour offset somewhat by an irritating need to follow the "Clueless" mould of teenagers (which was, admittedly, the trend at the time). It's not an awfully bad movie but it's not really all that good. In the end it's a 5.5/10 from me.