Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

In recent years the TV show that was a spin-off from this movie has been one of the more entertaining and original TV shows around. Despite an fairly silly premise (a teenage Californian girl becomes a chosen one destined to fight vampires) it manages to be just believable enough to work as a show, mostly due to some witty writing and good acting. Unfortunately the movie that spawned the show has neither of those qualities and as a result ends up as just another mediocre teen horror movie.

The idea behind the movie is the same as in the TV series, teenage girl Buffy Summers (Kirsty Swanson taking on Sarah Michelle Gellar’s role) has a normal life for a teenager from a rich Californian family - gossiping and shopping constantly - until a middle aged man who claims he is her “watcher” (Donald Sutherland) tells her she has a destiny to fight vampires and demons. After a visit to a graveyard convinces her these vampires are real she must use her newfound supernatural strength to counteract the evil forces of Rutger Hauer’s vampire lord with only her schoolmate Pike (Luke Perry) to assist.

Unfortunately the execution of these ideas is handled abysmally. Rutger Hauer has been in many poor films but he usually seems to manage a reasonable performance even in the worst circumstances. This, however, may be his worst role to date as a ridiculously over-dramatic vampire. Donald Sutherland doesn’t really seem to understand what is required of him, mumbling his way through an under-written role and Swanson’s performance as the heroine gives a clue as to why she’s not exactly a major star now. The dialogue - arguably one of the series’ stronger points - is at best mediocre here and the direction makes some of the scenes - particularly the confrontation between Hauer and Sutherland - laughable. The TV series has never been noted for good action scenes but they're still better than some of tension-free attempts here.

Vampire movies are not a genre that has often produced good films but even by the standards of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” or “John Carpenter’s Vampires” this is an exceedingly poor movie. The biggest question must be how Joss Whedon ever managed to persuade a TV company to make a spin-off series to this.

Rating : 4 / 10

All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .