Buffy, tueuse de vampires

I can't believe other reviewers called this moving "boring and idiotic". Um...hello...what were they expecting, a serious, contemplative piece of cinema? It's completely silly, as it's supposed to be. If it wasn't good, would it have inspired a (far inferior, in my opinion) television spin off? Watch it with no expectations. You'll be impressed. Kirsty Swanson does that Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless" thing perfectly. My friends and I have made it a ritual to watch this movie every couple months with a bottle of wine and a big bowl of popcorn. Nothing better on a rainy night. Don't listen to the bozos who said this isn't worth seeing. It's hilarious, trust me.

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!

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.

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.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" follows sassy and unsuspecting cheerleader Buffy (Kristy Swanson), a simple L.A. girl who spends her free time shopping and socializing in the mall food court. But when she finds herself responsible with the taking down bloodsucking demons from hell under the eye of a newfound guardian (Donald Sutherland), her extracurricular activities take a serious hit.

Something of a cult film today, and the launching pad for a series of actors (including lead Kristy Swanson, and co-stars Hilary Swank and David Arquette)—as well as birthing the wildly popular series—"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a heady brew of teen comedy and vampire splatter-lite. I'll make it clear: this is definitely a corny flick, and Joss Whedon's script takes place in an alternate reality where vampires and Valley Girls can and do co-exist. In a lot of ways, it feels like an eighties movie, akin to something "Fright Night" but far less sinister.

Whedon's script is humorous in the right places, and Swanson plays the spunky titular character with an appropriate pep. A young Luke Perry is the high school bad boy/hunk and looks the part probably more than he plays it, but his performance is fine. The presence of Paul Reubens and Donald Sutherland lend the film more credibility than it probably deserves, although Sutherland does feel somewhat out of place here; regardless, you can't knock a film for having Donald Sutherland as a part of its cast.

All in all, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a fun and energetic offering of late eighties teen comedy with a splash of vampire blood and some fantastic one-liners; it's a ridiculous, alternate world fantasy, but a fun one at that. It does a fantastic job at meeting the crosshairs of horror and comedy without steering itself into too serious territory. 7/10.