Buffy, tueuse de vampires

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.

Kristy Swanson is an underrated actress.

This was a fun romp Hanging with your friends in the Mall food court eating good junk food Bring back the 90s!

Buffy the vampire slayer is not a terrific film. It is not the type of cinema that leaves you breathless and reeling, nor is it the type of cinema that idles at first creeps through your dreams with pervasive intensity. No, this is Time Capsule Cinema, a voyage to the neon panoply of early 90's California in the self described "Lite Age."

Kristy Swanson is lovely as the wise cracking eponymous star, nicely alternating between clinical sarcasm and tenderness in what is, essentially, a limited role. Donald Sutherland and Rutger Howard are hilarious as ancient figures who just happen to be hip to the slangy nature of late 20th century teen dialog. Luke Perry, David Arquette and Hillary Swank (far from her best role, but my favorite film of hers!) and a few others are fine as the assemblage of irreverent teenagers, eye rolling to the max! A highlight of the film is Stephen Root, playing the principal, regaling Buffy with a cautionary tale of his experiences with LSD in the 60's..."I was at a Doobie Brothers concert..."

Oh, and by the way, that's PEE WEE FREAKIN HERMAN as the fanged creep Lefty. Boy he got outta jail just soon enough. Paul Ruebens is phenomenal, of course, and it may be his presence that allows me to shamelessly enjoy the rest of the film through my rose colored glasses of guilty nostalgia!

Too many serious films reek of Los Angeles- you can almost taste the soy burgers and smog- when they take place elsewhere. This makes it difficult to differentiate the cast of actors from the characters they are paid to represent. This film revels in LA's lack of charm and sophistication. I half expected an In-N-Out Burger commercial to pop up half way through. Not enough comedies are as unselfconscious as this one, content to poke fun at themselves till the vampires come home!

7*/10 CAMPY FUN

This is an unpretentious and funny high school action movie with vampires. Very beautiful young Kristy Swanson does a good job playing charismatic and initially futile Buffy. Even the most obvious clichés are nice to be seen performed by her: Silverstone-Clueless-style emptiness, martial arts and vampire-slaying practice, cheer-leading for the basketball school team. Both arrogance and tenderness are convincingly portrayed at her pretty face. Quite remarkable was also Donald Sutherland in the role of Buffy's tutor, Merrick. The film gets campy sometimes, but it is not a flaw. It is quite good in what it intends to do (and that is not to frighten or to be serious). Indeed, I laughed a lot! Seeing Hillary Swank in her very first movie playing one of Buffy's best airhead friends is something to be highlighted. The same can be said about having Rutger Hauer as the comic master vampire. My positive review has nothing to do with being a fan of the TV show, as I have never watched it.

I have to admit right now that I've never seen the TV series, so I don't know all the differences/improvements and whatever else that was done when the film was translated from the big screen to the small screen.

Why do I bring that up? Because I happen to like this movie as a bit of fun popcorn fluff, but reading the posts and other reviews you'd think some people were expecting a vampire genred "Citizen Kane". But, whatever.

The film is essentially a tongue in cheek vampire film with an action and role reversal twist. There's not much else here. We've got some marquis players in the thing starting with Donald Sutherland as the world weary trainer, Rutger Hauer as the upper crusted monster from Slovak nobility, to TV's then very popular Luke Perry, the guy who plays a little role reversal with Kristy Swanson's character.

It's essentially boy meets girl meets vampires kind of film. It's a bit of a coming of age film where the main characters either evolve and learn to deal with the hardships of real life monsters, or wind up being certifiable.

Beyond that it's just a fun film to watch. There's some adventure, some romance, a few laughs, some horror, and some action. Imagine the cheerleader you had a crush on in high school turning into Rambo for the paranormal. That's pretty much what Buffy's all about.

Pop it in to the old DVD player and enjoy!