Buffy
the Vampire Slayer
1992
Director- Fran Rubel Kuzui
Cast- Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer, Donald
Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Hilary Swank, Paris Vaughan, Michele Abrams, Randall
Batinkoff, David Arquette, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Sasha Jenson
I’m not
sure if this needs explaining but then again, the movie is almost 30 years old
and the spin off series is 20 years old (now some of you feel old) so it’s
entirely possible that a lot of people have never seen either.
Buffy
Summers (Kristy Swanson) is a shallow, vacuous Valley Girl. For younger
readers, Valley Girls were an off shoot of homo sapiens that thrived from the
early 1980s to the late1990s. They originated in the California San Fernando
Valley and could be found in shopping malls across America buying lips glosses
and designer jeans. They were eventually replaced by the more sexually predatory
Instagram models. Though they can now only be found in the fossil record, their
cultural influence lives on in the habit of most Americans using the word “like”
in place of a comma when speaking.
Buffy’s
days are filled with barely passing various high school classes, cheerleader
practice and making judgments about people of lower social classes than herself.
Her blissful existence is interrupted when an old man, Merrick, (Donald
Sutherland) shows up and tells her that she has a special destiny. Apparently
Los Angeles is being overrun by vampires and Buffy, as the latest in a long
line of Slayers, must prepare herself for war.
She is
naturally hesitant to believe any of this until she sees some of the undead in
action. With the help of a training montage she gets in shape and hones her
fighting skills. The menace she is preparing for is Lothos (Rutgar Hauer) an
ancient vampire aided by Amilyn, his right hand man (Pee Wee Herman himself,
Paul Reubens). Aiding Buffy is Pike (Luke Perry), a slacker whose best friend
(David Arquette) is now one of the undead masses.
Luke
Perry and Kristy Swanson were 26 and 22 respectively so it was a little hard to
believe that they were high school students, but I suppose they had nothing on
Steve McQueen who was 28 when he played a teenager in The Blob. Luke Perry was
at the height of his popularity as a star of the ultimate 90s TV show, Beverly
Hills 90210. Swanson looked like the All-American girl next door, attractive
but seemingly approachable. This was not her only brush with horror. The year
before, she appeared in the lesser known, but superior, Highway to Hell.
Joss
Whedon, who wrote the film, apparently didn’t think too highly of it. The
studio changed a lot of his script and he wasn’t happy with the casting of
Donald Sutherland. He left the film during production. I guess it didn’t matter
in the long run.
As a
horror-comedy it’s hard to judge with modern eyes. It’s not scary and the humor
is hit and miss. It lacks the wit of Fright Night and the action scenes fall
far ,far below that of Blade or Underworld. The value of this film is not in
the film itself, but in its legacy. It spawned the very popular TV series that
lasted for 144 episodes and made Sarah Michelle Geller a highly sought after
Scream Queen. More important than all of that is that it made Joss Whedon’s
career and was the start of his 20 year reign as King of all nerdom (he
dethroned Kevin Smith for the title and was in turn dethroned by John Favreau).
Without Buffy, there is no Angel, no Firefly, no Doll House, and the Marvel Cinematic
Universe might never have become the juggernaut that it is. So, maybe the movie
is lacking in various places, but it’s worth a watch for genre fans if for no
other reason than its historical value.
Fun fact #1- The film was made by Dolly Parton’s
production company, Sandollar.
Fun fact #2- Look for cameos of future stars Ben Affleck
and Ricky Lake.
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