Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1992, PG-13)

Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui

Written by Josh Whedon

Starring Kristie Swanson, Luke Perry, David Arquette, Donald Sutherland

As Reviewed by James Brudage

I’ll admit to it – I watch the series. Occasionally, I’m tuned to Pittsburgh’s WB 31 and it just happens to be Tuesdays and I decide: OK, tonight I’m going to watch cheap horror and dammit, I’m going to do my best to enjoy it! Why “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” is my drug of choice I don’t know. I’ve only been watching it for a few weeks and teen angst films and TV shows were never perennial favorites, but I’d like to think I see something in the show that most people don’t. What is it? I would have to say that, like “The X-Files," “Millennium," “ER," and “Ally MacBeal," four other shows that I watch about every week, “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” has a sick sense of humor.

I’ve always been a fan of dark comedies, as anyone reading my reviews for a long time will know, and I’ve always found that, if a dark comedy doesn’t try to have any point beyond humor, it’s much more enjoyable. “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer”, in catering to the acne center of the nation (both figuratively and literally), ends up putting all of this stupid crap of love and relationships and “well-built” characters which are actually cardboard cutouts. It would be much stronger without all this teen angst crap.

Even the people who like my reviews are probably saying, GET TO THE MOVIE, ALREADY! The truth of the matter is, through the last two paragraphs, I have been explaining to you why I liked the movie Buffy, the Vampire Slayer more than I like the show.

The movie, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer doesn’t waste time getting into its unique brand of sarcasm. You are first greeted with seeing an ancient slayer and a voice-over introduction with a caption “Europe – The Dark Ages” , and then cut to an LA mall with Buffy, LA prep and soon-to-be-slayer and the caption “Los Angeles – The Lite Ages”. This kind of sarcastic pace keeps up through the entire movie.

The performances, admittedly, are lacking. The direction is downright bad, and the storyline really doesn’t help much, but all of this is made up in spades with one of the most finely crafted formula scripts courtesy of Josh Whedon. This is the type of guy Kevin Williamson would hang out with, someone who is able to take a genre and say: “OK, I’m going to work with you, work within you, and still make fun of you at the same time.” He even throws in a cheap romance between Buffy and Pike (a name and a fish!), played by Luke Perry back when both he and 90210 were “the thing”.

Yes, it’s one of those films my sister would go “oh, that’s so sweet” to while I’m laughing my ass off. I’m sorry, but when I see something as utterly hilarious as a relationship based upon attraction, sex, love, leather jackets and riding the world of undead minions, I just have to laugh.

I’m aware that, after reviewing both this and She’s all That with positive reviews, I will either be shot at by other, vehemently disagreeing critics or cause critical praise for Friday the 13th, but I’m saying my mind and my mind tells me that this is bad. Wait, hold it, my mind does tell me this is bad, that it is cheesy horror crap and it keeps telling me “shouldn’t you be seeing Life is Beautiful instead of sitting around and watching a HORROR film?”, but my soul -- thank God the part of my body I review with -- tells me that this one is worth renting. That is, if you can stand a horror film instead of some high-brow crap and want to laugh.