Dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui
Made in the early nineties, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a completely different concept in vampire movies. It�s a story of a Chosen One, the vampire slayer: a girl whose destiny is to hunt vampires. She�s always trained by a watcher, and she always loses the war in the end. This generation�s Slayer is different, however. To begin with, she�s a complete ditz. At no point does she stop being a ditz. She�s a cheerleader, and her main goal in life is to graduate high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die. She�s well on her way to fulfilling her goals when along comes Merrick, a skanky old man who tries to tell her that her destiny is to kill a bunch of bogymen. She naturally thinks he�s crazy, leading to some of the best quotes in all of vampire flick-dom �Do you know Elvis? Does he talk to you? Do you see�spots?� He manages to convince her she is indeed the Chosen One, and training ensues. She is helped in her new life not only by Merrick, but also Pike, a slacker whose best friend has joined the legions of the undead. Buffy and Pike are polar opposites, but come together as the only people in town who know (or care) what the hell is going on. Buffy�s friends are clueless as to what�s going on, but know that she�s no longer one of them. They turn on her, almost forcing her back to her pre-slayer days of vacuous valley babe-dom. Little do they know, Buffy has brought that babe-dom with her as a weapon.
To begin with, the movie is hilarious. The dialogue sparkles with one liners and give/take that have me laughing so hard I can hardly breathe. You can also watch for early roles of many big shot actors. Ben Affleck is a basketball player for the other team. Hilary Swank is one of the girls in Buffy�s fashion posse. David Arquette plays Pike�s friend who becomes a vampire. However, the stars of the show are, in fact, the stars of the show. Kristy Swanson is perfect as the empty headed cheerleader who is in way, way over her head, and has just enough brains to know it. Luke Perry is wonderful as the bad boy Pike who�s got more enthusiasm for killing the vamps than the actual slayer does. Donald Sutherland as Merrick the watcher brings a heartwarming humor, as one of the few underplayed roles in here. Rutger Hauer as Lothos, the master vampire, is as over the top as you can hope for. Then there�s Paul Reubens. Ah, Paul Reubens. He steals the show with his comedic timing and not-to-be-missed final scene, which keeps going and going and going.
Before Buffy the movie, it seemed like all vampire flicks revolved around clueless people getting slaughtered before someone bright figured it out, or vampire hunters (or comic readers) who were saving the innocent from destruction. This is the first -- and possibly only -- story that had the prerequisite clueless person as the savior. It was first, and because of tongue in cheek situations, humor, and the empty-headed heroine, it�s still the best.
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