Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Director:

Fran Rubel Kuzui

Writer (WGA):

Joss Whedon (written by)

Release Date:

31 July 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Comedy | Action

Tagline:

Pert. Wholesome. Way Lethal.

Plot:

A flighty teenage girl learns that she is her generation's destined battler of vampires.

Plot Keywords:

Vampire | Chosen One | Cheerleading | Mission | Cheerleader

Cast

Kristy Swanson	...	Buffy
Donald Sutherland	...	Merrick
Paul Reubens	...	Amilyn
Rutger Hauer	...	Lothos
Luke Perry	...	Pike
Michele Abrams	...	Jennifer
Hilary Swank	...	Kimberly
Paris Vaughan	...	Nicole 'Nicki'
David Arquette	...	Benny
Randall Batinkoff	...	Jeffrey
Andrew Lowery	...	Andy
Sasha Jenson	...	Grueller
Stephen Root	...	Gary Murray
Natasha Gregson Wagner	...	Cassandra
Candy Clark	...	Buffy's Mom

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for comic vampire violence and drug references.

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:14 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Finland:K-16 | Australia:PG | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Germany:12 | Singapore:PG | UK:15 (video rating) (1993) (cut) | UK:15 (video rating) (2002) (uncut) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #31838) | UK:12 (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Ballroom, Park Plaza Hotel - 607 S. Park View Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Joss Whedon was so frustrated by how much of his vision was being mishandled and how much of it was being rewritten that he eventually left the set during production and never came back.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Pike talks to Buffy while on his motorcycle, he does a turn toward the photo booth. You see a close up of him just as he his revving up his bike, and he is maybe two to three feet from the photo booth, which is not enough room to do the maneuver. In the next shot, you then see him about six or seven feet from the booth, and he does the maneuver.

Quotes:

Benny: Her yabos scoff at gravity.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Wickeds (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

PARTY WITH THE ANIMALS

Tongue-in-cheek but it doesn't make a great movie

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.