Though it has been a request for a long time
I have felt...mostly ambivalent about reviewing
the Buffy movie.
I think a lot of contemporary critics delight
in a good massacre and some, like Red Letter
Media, have raised it to an art form.
But I know that the Buffy movie holds a nostalgic
place in people’s hearts and I don’t really
delight in the death of anyone’s darlings.
I never take as much joy in tearing a thing
to pieces as I do elevating something I treasure.
Well...almost never.
I watched the Buffy movie for the first time
2 years ago.
I am not a fan of camp and hold no nostalgia
for it.
This movie is the misfire that accidentally
lead to one of my favorite pieces of entertainment
ever.
If you feel differently, close the video and
come back in a couple weeks.
I’ll have the guides for Something Blue
and Hero up around that time.
For the sake of completion and to honor the
vote I put up, I present to you my review
of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.
Another issue this review poses is how to
talk about the material.
As someone who has watched the series many
many times, it is impossible for me to look
at the movie on it’s own merits.
I started with Buffy the show first, fell
in deep love, and went back to watch the movie
much later.
I can’t consider this material without pondering
what it turned into.
And so, that is the confusing muddled perspective
from which this review has been written.
What might’ve been.
And what was.
The movie opens with a self self serious VO
and campy intro explaining poorly that the
Slayer bears the birthmark of the coven and
is the only one suited to fight vampires that
walk among us.
She is trained by the Watcher and when she
dies the next is chosen.
We then hard cut to modern times at Hemry
High School and Buffy herself.
That afternoon as Buffy and her friends debate
the merits of various theaters using the clunky
invented teenage vernacular that weighed down
the TV pilot a bit.
“yadd a yadda yadda locker room scene from
Buffy pilot”
She is given the stiff one eye from an odd
looking man while trying to descend in an
elevator.
And in the theater we’re introduced to Pike
and his friend Benny.
Pike regales Buffy’s boyfriend with a stirring
bit of dialogue.
6:30 “Luke Perry says nothing”
And one of the basketball jocks is eaten by
a vampire, played by Paul Reubens.
Buffy’s parents are rich and aloof.
And as she falls asleep that evening she experiences
the dreams of the Slayer’s past lives.
After an inexplicable and pointless run in
with Buffy and company, Pike and Benny are
out drunkenly on the town.
Pike passes out and Benny gets eaten by Paul
Reuben.
The next day Merrick confronts Buffy and tells
her the truth.
“You want me to come to the graveyard with
you...does Elvis talk to you?”
I think the 
most admirable thing about this movie is Kristy
Swanson and how hard she is actually trying.
Her’s is a performance from a much better
movie.
Merrick knows the content of Buffy’s dreams
because, of course, they’re real and Buffy
agrees to train with him.
At the graveyard Buffy witness her first vampires
rising and slays them both.
Benny has gone full mushroom eared flying
vampire.
That night as Buffy prepares for bed we get
what is probably my favorite bit from this
entire movie.
As the camera pans around Buffy’s bedroom
Lothos is revealed, already lying in Buffy’s
bed as she cuddles against him and he touches
his her face.
It’s chilling, successfully executed, and
completely out of place in this movie.
The movie struggles mightily with tone and
swings wildly throughout.
Is it a cheesy campy comedy?
Is it a horror movie?
Is it a drama?
I would classify Buffy the show, as a drama
that is populated by smart witty characters.
Mostly the show isn’t funny because har
har, comedic hijinx but because the character’s
most successful defense mechanism against
the horrors around them is gallows humor.
If this is your last hour on earth, why not
spend it smiling and having a laugh?
But the core tone of the show is grounded
well enough.
The movie, is at times stupid, sappy, funny,
and in this lone scene, scary.
After that wee get a training montage of Buffy
getting all Slayerized, including her first
kill in an alley.
And then Buffy and Merrick bond over their
mutual cycle of reincarnation.
“I’m not going to croak…”
Pike is attacked by Paul Reubens and a chase
ensues ending with one of the visual icons
I remember from the trailer.
Buffy rescues him and brings him...home for
some reason.
And their bit of sexy close taking in the
kitchen reminded me of a similar bit from
something else…
The next day Buffy’s boyfriend’s douchey
friend grabs her backside and Buffy Slayers
him into the ground because sexism.
When Buffy’s beau makes an attempt to be
sheltery and protective she pushes him away.
Buffy skips Slayer practice to cheer at the
basketball game that evening.
In it a vampire decides to duplicate scenes
from Teen Wolf while completely ignoring the
context from that movie, as well as the fact
that he’s acting alongside Ben Affleck.
The Wolf I mean vampire figures out who Buffy
is and takes off to tell the master...even
though...wait...didn’t Pee Wee Pire already
know that?
Why is this chase a thing?
Oh who cares.
Anyway, at an abandoned area for parade floats
Buffy and Pike call some vampires and conveniently
get romantic.
Merrick shows up with Lothos and Lothos kills
him.
Sutherland phones in the death scene hard.
“When the music stops, the rest is silence.”
This is such a weird hammy death scene, and
Donald Sutherland so famously pissed off Whedon
during the filming of the movie for changing
the lines, that I wondered if this whole bit
of dialogue wasn’t pulled directly out of
Sutherland’s butthole.
Especially given how little, Kristy Swanson
has to do in this scene.
In working on this review I thought it would
be interesting to compare both the Buffy the
Vampire Slayer Origin comic, which was supposedly
much more faithful to the original script,
as well as the various and sundry versions
of the script I could find online.
The movie very lightly covers the idea that
Merrick and Buffy have BOTH been reincarnated,
lifetime after lifetime, but then never really
does anything with it.
But in the original script, Lothos corners
Merrick as Buffy is rushing to them.
And Lothos recognizes Merrick as the Watcher
he’s seen time and time again.
He indicates that he has in previous lifetimes
turned Merrick and forced him to murder the
Slayer, before serving Lothos as a vampire.
Rather than face the same fate and put Buffy
at risk, Merrick pulls a gun and kills himself
in order to save Buffy.
A FAR more dramatic and brave ending for the
character.
Instead we get Donald Sutherland laying on
his back hamming it up by completely misappropriating
Hamlet’s last line.
Ironically, the fact that Sutherland chose
Hamlet, one of the most famous protagonists
in history suggests that he didn’t realize
he wasn’t the hero of this story.
Buffy grieves.
The next day the clan is preparing for the
dance and sniping at a Buffy, more preoccupied
with Slayering than being one of them.
She has a falling out with Pike that doesn’t
make a ton of sense.
Buffy’s skeez of a boyfriend dumps her.
Luke Perry shows up looking like liquid 90s
cool.
Vampires crash.
Perry tosses Buffy his leather jacket, which
one would think was overly cumbersome but
works as a very on-the-nose symbol for masculine
power.
This ham handed image was not in the original
script.
Buffy kills Paul Reuben who takes way too…
Who takes way too long to
Who takes way too long to…
Who takes an ungodly and unfunny amount of
time to die.
Lothos comedically tries to seduce Buffy.
It doesn’t work.
You know...stuff happens.
And Buffy rides away with Pike.
The movies profound badness makes no sense
on paper.
Donald Sutherland, Hilary Swank, Ben Affleck,
Kristy Swanson, Paul Reubens, and Rutger Hauer?
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t
believe” speech with Buffy shit in the background.
The only level I find the film forgivable
is the acting.
Kristy Swanson is trying her damndest.
Paul Reuben’s and Rutger Hauer aren’t
doing anything that would seem to contrast
with the choices the director is making.
But everything else is pedestrian and just
off.
The direction doesn’t seem to understand
the script, and rather than developing an
identity of it’s own instead borrows painfully
from other better films.
Namely, Heathers and Teen Wolf.
The movie was directed by Fran Rubel Kazui,
who today has two directing credits to her
name.
Tokyo Pop...and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
She’s also listed as an executive producer
on every single episode of Buffy and Angel,
as her production company financed the film
and own partial rights to the IP.
But everyone who worked on both shows said
their company never had any involvement.
Thankfully.
The opening 60 seconds are kind of emblematic
of why the movie falls flat.
Everything is played for humor or camp value.
Nothing is taken seriously.
And because of that there is no contrast or
stakes to what's going on.
It’s all screwball and yet the movie tries
to have it both ways later on.
Screwball might’ve been fine if any of the
jokes are funny, but short of the occasional
well written quip, there are no funny jokes
to speak of.
The movie lacks any editing flow as well.
Everything is so dissonant.
The cuts feel weird and unnecessary, as though
no one was sure how to move things from scene
to scene.
There is an early scene that begins with Buffy’s
parents leaving for a vacation, and absentmindedly
calling Buffy’s boyfriend by the wrong name.
She pouts and the scene dissolves out.
That's it...this entire clunker serves to
tell us one single thing about Buffy’s home
life, does little to forward the plot or to
develop anything about her character, and
since the scene doesn't really have an ending
because nothing is actually occurring in it,
we just dissolve into the next one.
The editing also sabotages much of the “comedy”
-dr evil- as well, as in this scene when Pike
and Benny meet Buffy and company face to face
for the first time.
Savor the uninterrupted long pauses and cutaways
from the things we should actually be looking
at and ask yourself...why didn’t they just
remove this?
And then there’s the problem of Donald Sutherland.
I’ve never seen a performance phone in quite
as hard as this and he was apparently an entitled
nightmare during the shoot.
In an interview with The A.V.
Club Joss Whedon said,
“I pretty much threw up my hands because
I could not be around Donald Sutherland any
longer.
Included on the Bluray is a behind the scenes
featurette, in which Donald Sutherland says
one thing.
“I was so embarrassed to tell everyone I
was in a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
There is evidence to suggest that Sutherland
was supposed to be doing an English accent,
but then shortly gives up on the idea because
he can’t be bothered.
We know from the show that the Watcher’s
council are all English.
And in Sutherland’s first scene where he
rescues Pike you can hear him doing a bit
of it.
“This is not safe out here…”
And Buffy later employs what would be an odd
insult if Sutherland WEREN’T British.
“Sconehead insult.
Such a waste.
Many of the ideas for the show are here mostly
unbaked or uninteresting.
I’ve mentioned in my guide for the TV show
that within the feminist model that Buffy
present, Xander is a necessary component.
He is the male who doesn’t question, debate,
or resent Buffy’s power and leadership but
instead seeks to find his own role and identity.
Luke Perry’s Pike fills that role here,
if blandly - lacking many of Xander’s strengths
that make him an interesting character as
well as the weaknesses that make part of the
fandom revile him.
Mercifully, a few of the movies ideas were
thankfully left behind.
For instance Buffy’s vampire menstrual cramp
radar.
In the movie Donald Sutherland tells Buffy
that her cramps are a sign that vampires are
nearby.
“You’re going to be able to use them to
track the vampires.”
- Great, my secret weapon is PMS.
Needless to say, using Buffy’s uterus as
a symbol in a symbol heavy story whose primary
metaphor is accepting the responsibility of
growing up and becoming an adult is a little
creepy and weird.
Adulthood and physical maturity are not synonymous.
One is earned through responsibility and choice,
and the other is just a simple inevitability
of time.
And the inclusion of her uterine vampire radar
feels like a misstep that accidentally tethers
Buffy’s power and identity to her ability
to make babies.
Something Whedon has been criticized for more
than once.
And yes this one is in the script.
As mentioned, it is totally impossible for
me to provide an unbiased critique of this
movie.
Throughout I hear nothing but the missed opportunities
and throwaway dialogue that turned into deep
and meaningful themes on the show.
While fully acknowledging that even Whedon
couldn’t have known the fruit these ideas
would bear as they are thoughts that grew
organically from thousands of hours of work,
let's look at two scenes from Buffy the show
and movie.
Throughout both stories there is a question
as to what it is that makes Buffy different
and more successful than previous Slayers.
Why has she lasted far longer than others?
In the movie, this works as sort of metaphor-light.
“Merrick I’m not going to croak.
I have something none of the other slayers
did.”
- “And what is that?”
- “My keen fashion sense.”
The scene is played as a bonding moment between
Buffy and Merrick, serving two purposes.
First, to make Merrick’s death later on
a little more impactful and second to act
as a metaphor near the end for Buffy herself.
Buffy’s keen fashion sense, part of her
stock early 90s femininity, is used literally
as a weapon in the form of the hair spray
to destroy Merrick.
But consider nearly the same idea from the
show, where the answer to what ties Buffy
to the world also stands as the reason for
her death at the end of that season.
In a scene from one of my favorite episodes,
Spike, a vampire who has begun to come to
grips with his crush on Buffy, is explaining
how he was able to kill two Slayers previous
to Buffy.
This is an enormously complex season so I
won’t spend too much time on it, and this
scene actually says far more about Spike than
it does about Buffy or the Slayer power.
Spike is a walking fountain of innuendo and
throughout this descriptions of the two Slayer’s
murders he is heavily sexualizing the stories.
The Asian Slayer’s blood is an aphrodisiac
for he and Drusilla and he says he could’ve
danced all night with the NY Slayer.
There’s really no way for him to know if
every Slayer has a death wish because he’s
only met three of them.
What these deaths are about for him are actually
the little death or orgasm.
Consider his selection of words when he talks
about Buffy’s death.
Buffy’s rejection of Spike’s advances
also works on two levels, suggesting first
that she’ll never sleep with him and second
that Spike will never be able to kill her.
But the relevant detail that Spike points
out is the only thing that has allowed Buffy
to last as long as she has are her ties to
the world.
Mother, Scoobies, sister Dawn.
In short, love.
Where other Slayer’s were taken from all
that and taught ONLY about duty and responsibility,
Buffy has lived a life in balance.
Duty, responsibility in tandem with hope,
and connection.
And through a philosophical lens that doesn’t
confuse right with good.
And right versus good is ultimately, what
the finale is all about.
Buffy is faced with the choice of killing
her sister Dawn and saving the world, or defending
Dawn to her last breath.
Good versus right.
Duty versus love.
In the end when Buffy has her epiphany, the
question of how she lived as long as she has,
in what makes her different is rendered irrelevant.
The details of death are far less important
than how we spend the time we have.
Love, duty, and sacrifice.
Spike’s bravado from Fool For Love is painfully
ironic here.
“The second…” montage
Okay, so I got a little carried away there.
It isn’t that I EXPECT the same degree of
character development and complexity from
the movie.
It’s that I can’t turn off the part of
me that has already heard all of these ideas
before but seen them done FAR more successfully.
That and...well I just missed talking about
the show.
But maybe that is as good a place as any to
end.
With the thing, I am most grateful to the
movie for.
