October Movie #2 – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

Full disclosure: I have never seen a single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t know much of anything about it. And judging by the movie, I still don’t know how this concept could work.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer came out in 1992 and was written by Joss Whedon but directed by someone else. It has a ham-fisted backstory that every generation has a “slayer” that is meant to take out the hidden world of vampires. This time, it’s a valley girl in high school and we’re all fucked. But considering no slayer has ever actually done their job and rid the world of vampires, I’m guessing “being fucked” is par for the course. Also, every slayer is a woman. There’s no explanation for that.

The story is a typical low-rent high school drama matched with a typical low-rent vampire story. The characters are mostly one-dimensional (aside from Buffy), the vampires vamp and chew scenery, and the plot is paper thin. There are times when you can pick out the sharp dialog and humor that Whedon is known for, but those moments are overshadowed by things that don’t make sense or are so cliche it hurts. One thing that did stand out is that the cast is absolutely stellar for 1992: Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry, Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer, Hillary Swank, David Arquette, Stephen Root, Seth Green (he’s in it for 3 seconds), Ben Affleck (again, 3 seconds), Ricki Lake, and a cameo from Slash. That’s an insane amount of talent for such an insanely bad movie.

It was good to read that Joss reportedly stopped showing up on set when he saw what was being done to his vision and has distanced both himself and the TV show from the movie. But it still begs the question- what executive heard the pitch for the TV show and had any confidence that it would be better than the movie? Maybe one day I’ll find out and actually watch the show, but it’s not going to be soon.