Film review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui
Every legend has to be born somewhere, right? Before Sarah Michelle Gellar there was Kristy Swanson. This early 1990s vampire flick has just about only the name in common with the TV series which would follow a few years later. You know, the really good one. Unlike, I dunno, this film. There’s no Willow, no Xander, not even a Mr Giles, and Buffy’s parents are … well, they’re not exactly the Mr and Mrs Summers we’ve come to know.
Buffy (Kristy Swanson) is your average teenager. She’s a cheerleader without a care in the world for anyone but herself, possibly her boyfriend, and her BFFs (a young Hilary Swank is one of them). She’s shallow and arrogant, and one day she encounters Merrick (Donald Sutherland), a man who says she’s the Chosen One. Not chosen for prom queen, but the life of a vampire slayer. Say what now?
Yup, the city is flooding with fanged garlic-phobes, such as big Dracula-wannabe Lothos (Rutger Hauer) and his sidekick Amilyn (Paul Reubens, with possibly the closest thing you get to what you’d recognise as Joss Whedon’s dialogue style), and it seems Buffy is the one who needs to put her pom-poms down and start kicking some butt.
One of the guys she and her friends keep bumping into is Pike (Luke Perry, a Beverly Hills 90210 heartthrob at the time), whose best friend (David Arquette) has turned into a vampire. At first he tried to run, but then he decides it’s a much better idea to stick to the hot blonde with the stakes. Who could blame him, right?
So there’s slayer training, senior dances to arrange and then go to, boyfriends to snog, stakes to sharpen and vampires to take out, while we’re treated to uncredited appearances of the likes of Ben Affleck (basketball player), Seth Green (vampire), and Ricki Lake (waitress). Donald Sutherland isn’t exactly Giles, but he does a nice job.
As a film, it looks painfully dated and low budget. It’s not scary, it’s not even particularly amusing – in fact, it feels like a great big beta test for the TV series. “Let’s see what works and what doesn’t.” Well, guess what? Most of it doesn’t work, and all I’m left with is a feeling of “blah”. Like the cramps Buffy gets when there’s a vampire nearby. Because getting bouts of what seems to be much like period pain is a good thing to have when you need to fight?
No. And the fake vampire teeth and ears look ridiculous too. I wasn’t expecting this to be very good, but I expected it to be better than this. Sadly, it’s a terrible let-down. If it wasn’t for knowing that this mess would eventually go through a chrysalis and turn into Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV series … it would be a total waste of time. As it is now, it’s an interesting look at a sort of first draft of what would come five years later and totally rock.
So, no.
2 out of 5 prom dates, tops? And that’s being generous.
I think this is the first time I don’t agree with you even on some small level. Probably because I never really got in to the series Buffy and that I watched this as a kid and loving it.
OMG! :O
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
I couldn’t get through the film, but I adore the series.
I was disturbed to hear that the Buffy rights owner is producing another Buffy movie without Joss Whedon. WRONG.
Really?! Without Whedon? That’s not on. Let’s hope it fails spectacularly.
To be fair, Whedon has, over many years in many places, talked with real anger and grief about how his script was mauled by the director (and, I was sorry to note, Donald Sutherland, whose performances I usually enjoy). Indeed, it was his horror at what was done to his baby that made him walk off the set part way through, never to return to the idea until a tv exec persuaded him that he’d be allowed to do it justice on tv (thank goodness).
Thank goodness he got to re-visit it with his ideas still intact. I love Buffy the TV show!