Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Rated PG-13 for comic vampire violence and drug references

Score: 2 out of 5

These days, when you talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only one thing comes to mind: the TV series that aired from 1997 to 2003 on The WB and later UPN, which spawned a hit spinoff in Angel and helped make its creator Joss Whedon into a generational geek icon. Buffy and Angel have been studied and picked apart from almost every direction, the subject of serious academic analysis for having lent a degree of respectability to "genre" fiction in the '90s while smuggling a new breed of feminist ideas into the discourse of America's youth. Pretty much every protagonist of an "urban fantasy" story since has been infused with some of the DNA of the valley girl vampire hunter Buffy Summers and her vampire paramour turned private detective Angel. One thing you don't hear many Buffistas talking all that much about, however, is the original movie the show was loosely adapted from. Written by Whedon and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, who would go on to produce the show with her husband Kaz, the finished film diverged so heavily from the original script that Whedon disowned it. He walked off the set during production out of frustration with both the more lighthearted tone Kuzui was going for and the behavior of Donald Sutherland, and when he created the show, he did not take the film as canon; only much later did a comic book adaptation of the film, based on his original script and not the final product, meet his approval.

And honestly, I can't blame him. The only reason why Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie, endures today while similar teen movies from that time have faded into obscurity is because of the legacy of the TV show, which lures many fans to watch the movie out of curiosity concerning the show's roots. It's not really worth it. It has its moments here and there, especially during the big prom night melee in the third act, but it's dragged down by a pair of leaden lead performances, a forgettable villain, flat direction, and a tone that's far too goofy to take seriously. The most damning thing about this film, however, is that we know what a good version of it looks like, in the form of the show that was based on it. Normally, I'd suggest watching something like this, a mediocre film that's not completely wretched, has its moments, and is built on a cool premise, simply on the grounds of actually seeing that interesting idea brought to life on screen (albeit imperfectly). It's why I still have a soft spot for Vampire Academy, for instance. But given that this film's own writer went back later on and did it so, so right, it doesn't even have that going for it.

In every generation, a Slayer is chosen. A young woman selected by the forces of light to fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness, gifted with supernatural strength and reflexes to make her an expert combatant who can battle the creatures of the night hand-to-hand. Her life is a short one, usually; when she dies, the new Slayer is called forward. And now, in 1992 in Southern California, the new Slayer is a valley girl named Buffy Summers who is, to put it bluntly, an airhead and a total brat. Her life is turned upside down when she is approached by Merrick, an older gentleman whose job it is to train each new Slayer, being reborn like her through generations. Buffy begins training to fight under Merrick, which forces her to put her life as a cheerleader aside, estranging her from her friends in school. However, given that there's an infestation of vampires in the Valley led by a particularly wicked bloodsucker named Lothos who has his sights set on the Slayer, it's just as well that she learn to kick ass.

The problems with this movie start with the characters. Kristy Swanson plays Buffy here, and while she definitely nails the look of an '80s/early '90s valley girl, that's about all she has going for her in the role. Throughout the film, she is dull, finding herself stretched beyond her limits as an actor when asked to convey emotion and instead coming across like a mannequin. She looks like she was cast more for her ability to look good in a sports bra and leggings than for her acting talent, and when placed side-by-side with Sarah Michelle Gellar's iconic take on the character, it's no contest. You'd think that a veteran actor like Donald Sutherland would deliver a better performance, but he felt like he was sleepwalking through the part of Buffy's watcher Merrick, just waiting to collect his paycheck at the end of the day. Even in the old promotional featurette included with the Blu-Ray, he looked like he couldn't be bothered to care about the film and acted like it was beneath him; it's no wonder that Whedon has horror stories about his experience working with him on this movie. Rutger Hauer's villain Lothos is as generic as an evil movie vampire can be, even if, unlike Swanson and Sutherland, he seemed like he was actually trying to infuse the part with some life and energy, and while Paul Reubens' henchman Amilyn could sometimes be entertaining, his death sequence was just cringeworthy in how it was drawn out for the sake of "comedy". Only Luke Perry managed to avoid embarrassing himself as Pike, the "bad boy" who becomes Buffy's love interest after she rescues him from vampires. He was cool, he was funny, and he felt like a prototype of Xander from the show, the average guy who got sucked into all of this and doesn't know how to handle it. He was easily the saving grace of this film in the character department, and the film is often most interesting when he's on screen and it's letting him do his thing.

As for the rest of the film, it's clear that the clashes between the writer and director did it no favors. Director Fran Rubel Kuzui is simply not cut out for directing action or horror, with one of the big scenes where vampires attack Pike in his van feeling like it barely even tried to build any real tension, and the final confrontation between Buffy and Lothos having almost no spark to it. All too often, her fondness for comedy over horror is an albatross around the film's neck, derailing scenes meant to put the characters in real peril. Only at the very end, when Lothos and his vampire army attack the high school dance, does the film manage to figure out a proper tone for its mix of horror and comedy and settle on it. This would've been the perfect film for Joel Schumacher or Kathryn Bigelow, both of whom had proven in the recent past that they could make thoroughly modern vampires scary and interesting. Not coincidentally, it's in the non-scary scenes where the film is just being a valley girl comedy where it's at its best, letting the fashion and music of the time, that era when the '80s were over but "the '90s" were just starting to kick in, wash over the audience. Even moreso than Clueless, this movie is a time capsule of teen culture in 1991-92, the early seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210 with a veneer of gothic horror parody laid over them. (For those who don't remember what that looks like: just look up any picture of the present-day teen idol JoJo Siwa. Her neon-and-denim fashion sense is basically lifted wholesale from the early '90s.)

The Bottom Line

Anybody interested in seeing this movie is better served with the TV show or The Lost Boys. It's not irredeemable, but it's not very good, either, and it's no wonder why Whedon hated it. Only recommended for serious Buffy completionists.