Convoluted Buffy Lacks Slayer Spark
Main Cast: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry, Paul Ruebens
Also Notable: Ben Affleck, Hilary Swank, Rutger Hauer
Director: Fran Rubel Kuzui
Joss Whedon was a screenwriter with a mission. His challenge was to blend teen camp with the horror genre and create a heroine who was feminine, tough and somewhat supernatural. Whedon had already earned his comic chops writing for the television shows Roseanne and Parenthood and script-doctoring Toy Story, but Buffy was the baby he nurtured.
In various interviews since his 1992 movie and the wildly successful cult television shows that followed, Whedon frequently expresses relief and thanks that network executives and production teams allowed him to shape his vision. Other accounts have studio executives demanding multiple rewrites to lighten up Whedon’s reportedly darker offering. One need only view acclaimed Buffy episodes such as Hush to see that Whedon wanted to write dark, suspenseful material that was regularly lightened by comedy to avoid becoming true horror.
Buffy, With Hilary Swank and Ben Affleck?
Led by Donald Sutherland, Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a well known cast that includes a very young Luke Perry, Paul Reubens (of Pee-Wee Herman fame), Rutger Hauer and Kristy Swanson in the title role.
What about Swank and Affleck?
Both are there. Ben Affleck is an uncredited role as a basketball player, but is instantly recognizable. Swank, only 18 years old and in her first movie role, is part of Buffy’s pack of friends. Both, of course, went on to bigger successes, as did leading character actors Sutherland and Hauer.
But Buffy was never a breakthrough role for the graceful and strong Swanson. Delivering her lines with the catty teenage girl cutting edge that Sarah Michelle Gellar popularized on television, Swanson was unable to convert Buffy into more successful roles. Since the 1992 release, Swanson has regularly appeared on television and in movies, but her biggest movie may have been the silly Dude, Where’s My Car?
Director Fran Rubel Kuzui, in only her second stint behind the cameras, lets the cast play for more laughs than gore or mythology. Indeed, when Sutherland, Perry or Swanson stake a vampire, there is no gore and only a brief glimpse of violence. Kuzui later rode the Buffy train hard, becoming a producer on the television show as well as its Angel spinoff.
Buffy’s Convoluted Plot
Buffy the TV series had more than 125 hours of character and mythology development. Buffy the movie has 86 minutes and part of that early time is setting up Swanson and her cohorts in a bad teen movie. By the time Sutherland’s Merrick character too easily convinces Buffy that she is “the chosen one”, the movie is almost a third done.
A training montage straight out of Rocky shows the athletic Swanson preparing to battle Lothos, the master vampire played with just enough comedy by Hauer. The setting remains horror, but is hardly scary. Instead, this is the story of a teenage girl neglected by her parents who finds herself in a supernatural world.
And that may be the biggest problem with this film. Little is done to convince the viewer that the vampires are real, and camera mugging by Paul Reubens doesn’t help matters. Buffy the movie is more violent and has even more focus on the love story than the television show, but the violence and the romance are nowhere near as developed. This is love of the plastic kind, like Andrew McCarthy in Mannequin and violence of the Star Trek variety, where a few well placed kicks and some phaser blasts obliterate all the aliens. There are some nice moments where the slayer mythology is shown, but little of the “In every generation” mysticism.
The comedy is still there. One only need to listen to Swanson sneering, “Does the word “duh” mean anything to you?” to realize that the film is meant to be comedy in a horror setting rather than horror with some comedy relief. In the end, there is not enough of any of the elements – mythology, horror, romance or comedy – to make this an enjoyable film except for fans of the television series or those who enjoy campy romps regardless of plot.
The Bottom Line, Popcorn Kernels and All
This is not your televised Buffy. The film version actually lacks the sweeping scale of the television show. Critics cannot often compare the television show favorably against the movie, but this is one case where Whedon’s vision was right on, and the movie is a lackluster prequel to the series he later created.
Five Things To Remember From The Buffy Review
1. Donald Sutherland turns in the best performance as Buffy’s trainer.
2. The cast is well known and features Hillary Swank and Ben Affleck before they were stars.
3. Buffy the teenager morphs into Buffy the heroine with almost no conflict. See Tobey Maguire’s confusion over his role in Spider-Man for lessons on how this should be done.
4. There is also a love story here, but it is pretty bland.
5. Buffy is a solo act here. There are no roles for the “Scoobies” present in the television series.
– G. Buonacos
