Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Film Review)

1992 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Fran Rubel Kuzui; Written: Joss Whedon
Starring: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer, and Luke Perry
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 86 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

Buffy Summers is your typical rich, callous, oblivious L.A. teenager. Her biggest concerns are cheerleading, hanging out with her boyfriend, and answering such questions as "How could we help the environment?" with answers like "Get rid of bugs, there are too many of them." However, Buffy's life is about to get flipped-turned upside down. First, this creepy old man is stalking her. Well, actually, everything stems from the creepy old man, who tells Buffy she's a "Slayer," who must hunt and protect the world from vampires. After a trip to the graveyard with the creepy old guy, Buffy soon learns that not only are vampires real, but that she appears to be uniquely equipped to fight them. Maybe she is a Slayer? As Buffy starts to put more attention into fighting vampires, and less into frivolity, she also starts to become a more fully realized human...and Lothos, a most powerful vampire, has taken notice.
Few movies get completely overshadowed by their own TV show adaptation, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a special exception. This 1992 original film has some off-the-wall, interesting ideas, but often just feels like an embryo of something bigger, that's been shoehorned into a romantic comedy frame in which it doesn't fit. As Buffy Summers, Kristy Swanson is a lot of fun, both as the insensitive ditz in the film's opening, as well as the more conscientious ass-kicker of the film's latter portions. Second-billed Donald Sutherland brings a fun, low-key, oddball energy to the part of Merrick, Buffy's old geezer guide into the paranormal world. Really, low-key, oddball energy sums up this movie as a whole, and in a way, that's to its detriment.
That's because Luke Perry's slacker sidekick/romantic interest character, Pike, is also a low-key, low energy oddball. He's fine, but Paul Reubens non low-key oddball energy as second-in-command vampire, Amilyn, feels far more like what this movie needs. Instead, the movie consistently feels like it's trying to live down its wacky title, as even the legendary Rutger Hauer, as lead villain, Lothos, doesn't do much. Lothos also doesn't act logically, at one point capturing and releasing Buffy, only to lament the fact that he needs to find and catch Buffy only moments later. Screenwriter and current pariah, Joss Whedon, always blamed the film's lack of logic on a frequently ad-libbing Sutherland, but that doesn't make much sense, considering a lot of the logical issues occur after Sutherland exits the film.
Overall, though, while its greatest impact is spawning off an iconic television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn't a horrible film. Whedon's smart dialogue, particularly amongst Buffy and her friends early on, still shines through. While Swanson and Reubens approach the material most aptly, the other actors do put in solid work. A low-key, fairly fun time is certainly not a bad time, and Swanson's Buffy could stand toe-to-toe with her TV counterpart--I only wish the film gave her the material to do so.