Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)
Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui
There are a lot of popular movies and tv shows that I somewhat avoided, hell it still happens today. The TV Series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I had no interest in. I’m not a big vampire fan and teen dramas just make me roll my eyes. Honestly I didn’t know back in the day that the series was based on a 1992 movie, that doesn’t get as much recognition as the show. It recently popped up on hulu so I gave it a watch.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer centers around Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson) a teenage girl that learns she’s destined to be her generation’s battler of vampires. She trains in martial arts and gets guidance from a century old master of vampire hunting played by Donald Sutherland. Now she has to ward off any vampires in her town, while trying to navigate the high school drama and boys. The movie is played for laughs and suspense both, which it does fairly well.
The cast is somewhat of a star-studded affair. Kristy Swanson was a relatively big deal for a little while, Donald Sutherland is a legend, and Luke Perry was huge in the early 90s thanks to 90210. Others in the movie are: Hilary Swank, David Arquette, Paul Reubens, and Rutger Hauer. The acting is fairly decent, aside from Luke Perry that was never that great until the end of his life where he improved. Donald Sutherland is always pretty solid and all of his characters feel different, which is impressive. Kristy Swanson is likeable and cute but has a good edge in this movie to make it believable that she could kick vampire ass.
The special effects are decent, there isn’t much in the way of blood and gore, I mean it is basically a comedy. There are a fair amount of good shots through out the movie that kept it interesting, along with some cool set design. The fighting scenes aren’t as bad as I thought they would be but they definitely aren’t Van Damme levels haha. Kristy Swanson does a decent job with kicks, but her punches look horrid.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a fun movie, not something I’d go back and watch numerous times, but I was entertained. I’m not sure how this found a second life as a tv series, and I guess I can’t really judge that since I’ve never seen the Sarah Michelle Gellar version. It wasn’t a massive success in theaters so maybe it was better meant as a series? It did a lot of fun things, the whole premise is interesting and the characters are fun, if not a time capsule of the early 90s. Honestly I’m not sure if I would watch this again, but I didn’t hate it. I give this a C+, not great, not bad, just underwhelming all in all.
