Welcome, one and all, to "Tales of the Longbox", here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 1992. That movie is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
Now, I do remember vaguely catching this movie on TV a long time ago. But I don't remember a thing from it. I do know that this movie was made a few years before the television series premiered. I also know that the movie stars Kristy Swanson, who plays a cheerleader that ends up becoming a vampire hunter in some way. I do not know how at this time, but I am going to find out soon enough. Now admittedly, I haven't really seen the Buffy TV series. The only real experience that I ever had with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was when I played a video game version of it on the GameCube. And I do remember it being kinda fun, albeit a little difficult.The only other thing I do know about this movie is the writer; Joss Whedon. And Whedon is a very polarizing figure in the world of media. More specifically, his movies. Because he wrote and directed "The Avengers". Which I did see, and it was pretty good. But he also wrote the sequel "Avengers: Age of Ultron". Which I saw a bit of, and I don't remember much about it, outside of one thing. And that's how he writes characters. Because he usually has some sort of a bad habit of writing characters as if they act the same way, talk the same way. Basically, he writes one type of character, and then copies and pastes it to most other characters that he writes. And, to me, that just comes off as laziness. And I do know that not only did he write the script for this movie, but he also created the Buffy TV series for it a few years later. Now while I can't say really much about the TV series, I am certainly hoping that this movie won't fall into the same problem that Whedon has, when it comes to his writing involving "The Avengers" movies.
So the only thing for me to do at this point, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
15 minutes later
Well, guys, I can you tell this much so far. Whedon's writing is already starting to show how stupid the dialogue is in this movie. I have yet to find a single likable character, or even an interesting moment that has happened, thus far. I understand it's still early, and this movie has plenty of time to get better, but, right now, I'm not really liking the dialogue in this movie, guys.
14 minutes later
So, let me see if I understand this. Merrick wanted to make sure that Buffy was the chosen one to slay these vampires, so he threw a knife at her head just so she could catch it. And he just stated that only the chosen one could have caught it. Well, what happens if someone else catches the knife? Are they deemed as the chosen one's, too? I understand that I might be reading too much into that, but the thought of it just occurred to me, you know?
5 minutes later
Wow. OK. Never thought I would see a movie where someone blows a Push Pin from their mouth and kill a fly with it. That was actually kinda cool.
15 minutes later
Wait a second here. So this basketball coach doesn't notice this guy's ears are totally different from the other players, and yet, he'll allow him to play on the court. What sense does that make? I totally understand that the coach doesn't know that this guy is really a vampire, but I still would've at least asked if there was something wrong with his ears. It would make just some semblance of sense, in my eyes. Then again, these "vampires" don't really look like vampires, but I'll get into that when I cover the special effects for this movie.
12 minutes later
You know, guys, this movie started off kinda shit, and now this movie's slowly becoming really dull. I genuinely was hoping for this movie to get interesting, and I haven't even gotten that yet. I am hoping for the next 20 minutes or so will give me something that will be halfway interesting, but at this point, those hopes are slowly fading, guys.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Well...that certainly was disappointing. You know, guys, I was sorta hoping that this movie would be interesting or, in some way, be funny. However, it doesn't really work here. So I guess I should start with writing, as I usually do.
As I stated earlier, I haven't really seen the Buffy TV series. My only experience with Buffy was a video game that I played back on the GameCube. And I do remember the game being kinda fun. I also remember that the writing for that game was actually kinda witty and clever. So, you know what? Even though this movie kinda sucked, it's not enough for me to turn away from the TV series. At some point, I'm probably gonna look into checking out the TV series by buying the first two seasons on DVD, and see where it goes from there. I just kinda hope that that the writing in that series is better than what was shown here. Because this movie's writing is incredibly weak. Now, I mentioned at the start of this that this movie was a horror comedy. And, bless it, this movie was trying to aim for humor. But the humor here doesn't really work because none of it is witty, or funny in the slightest. And it also doesn't help that the dialogue for about half the movie is kinda shit. And that's mainly because the characters in this movie are mostly shallow and lifeless. Now, when I say that, I'm mainly talking about anybody that isn't either Buffy or Merrick.
For example, we have Buffy's friends, who I believe were also cheerleaders. I could be totally wrong there, but I digress. And their dialogue is mostly just valley-girl bullshit. That's not saying much, since valley girls don't have any personality to begin with. Then we have Pike, who admittedly, does do something in this movie. Such as when he notices Benny, a friend of his who died near the start of the movie, becoming a vampire. And then he gets the idea to get out of town because of all the weird stuff that's happening. Well, it probably would've helped if Pike didn't have the personality of dried paint. And that's all I could think of, every time he showed up on screen. I was kinda hoping that he would've been bitten by one of the vampires, but sadly, that didn't happen. Speaking of which, we also have our villain for this movie, Lothos. I honestly thought he would be a much bigger threat. But the most intimidating thing he does in this movie is stare at Buffy, who gets entranced by his stare. The only other notable thing he does in this movie, and this is going to be a slight spoiler, is that he kills Merrick, who I'll get to in a moment. But outside of that, Lothos is really kind of a shitty villain overall. And his final fight with Buffy ends up being really short and not interesting the slightest. And that's really the movie's biggest problem is that the writing is so bland, that I was struggling to stay awake during the latter portion of the movie. I was trying to find something that was halfway interesting, and the best thing that I could come up with was when Buffy shoots a Push Pin out of her mouth and kills a fly with it. And if that's the best thing this movie could come up with that was close to being interesting, then that is sad, especially considering that you have a movie involving vampires that fail to be interesting or threatening in any way.
Now, I will say that, barring most of the side characters, Buffy is really the only one who has any development. And it makes sense, because she is the main character, hence the title of this movie. We see her starting out as kind of a stupid valley girl with her friends. And then, later on, we get to see her become the vampire slayer that most people know about her. And helping her is Merrick. Because he was the one who chose her because of her birthright. And he was the only character that I kinda liked, because he was the only character, that wasn't Buffy, who struck me as an interesting character. It's kind of a pity that he gets killed off later on in the movie, leaving the only other character, who has somewhat of a personality to speak of. Unfortunately, even I found Buffy to be a little bit dull. Because despite her development, her personality never struck me as interesting. Now, I will say that her character doesn't suck. It's just, I never found the character of Buffy to be interesting or unique. At least, to me, I never found her interesting. So, I can easily say that the writing here is very weak, at least when it comes to the characters.
Now let's get to the acting. And I will say that, even though the writing was incredibly weak, the acting here was decent. I'm willing to go out and say that even though the characters were mostly dull and shallow, all of the cast members were able to take those one dimensional characters and kinda make it work. I can also say that Kristy Swanson does a great job playing as Buffy. Now, mind you, the acting in this movie is not going to set the world on fire, but it's certainly passable for what the actors had to work with. So even though I wasn't a fan of the writing, I can certainly praise the actors for taking a shallow script and running with it.
So now let's talk about the special effects. And this here, at least to me, is where my biggest problem comes in with this movie. Now, there really isn't a whole lot of special effects. I can recall one moment where there was CG fire, but since the effect was so trivial, I'm not gonna bother going into that. What I can talk about are the makeup effects on the vampires. Because it looks as though there is almost no makeup on them to differentiate themselves from other people. Now, for like two or three vampires, you can totally see the makeup effects on them, because they look different enough to look like vampires. And I'm also going to include Lothos. He also looks like a vampire with the makeup on his face. But almost every other vampire looks exactly like a normal person because of their lack of makeup on them. The only way you could tell that they are vampires is if you notice their sharp teeth. But you wouldn't be able to tell that because of their skin color, with one exception that I'll get to, and doesn't look to be different from any other human. Speaking of which, I'm still thinking about that vampire who was playing at the basketball game. And I asked why the basketball coach didn't notice the vampire's ears or teeth. Now I could be remembering that he never saw the teeth, but he should've been able to see guy's ears and somewhat pale skin to ask if something was wrong with him, which probably would've netted a different reaction out of the coach. But no, he doesn't notice that at all. In fact, because of the lack of makeup effects in this movie, I would not be shocked if Stephanie Meyer looked at this movie and thought that this is how vampires should look like when she was creating the "Twilight" movies. Now, I understand that the theory could be entirely bullshit, and it probably is. But still, the idea just came to me, so take it for what you will. So, guys, the special effects in this movie are mostly cheap, because of the lack of makeup effects for the vampires.
Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is well lit. The sound-mix is mixed well. The music...kinda sucks. A lot of the songs here are kinda shit. Well, kinda shit, even by the standards of early 90's rock music. And none of it here is memorable, or is even going to stick out at you, unless you're a fan of those really awful rock songs from the early 90's. Beyond that though, the soundtrack for this movie is incredibly forgetful.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"? Um...not really. I could maybe recommend it if you're a fan of the TV show. But other than that, it's kinda difficult for me to recommend it to anyone else. It fails at being a horror comedy, so I can't recommend it to fans of horror comedies. In fact, that's really where this movie fails at is the incredibly weak writing. Well that, and the special effects. But still, if you have never seen the TV show, or if you're not a fan of Buffy, then avoid this thing. It's not worth picking up, and there are far better horror comedies that you can watch. For example, I'm probably going to go watch "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" after I'm done putting this review together. Because I want to watch a better horror comedy. And this movie didn't really offer much of that. But again, I will say that, even though I wasn't a fan of this movie, I still might look into the television series, because it probably has better writing and interesting characters. So at least I can thank this movie enough for that. But still...it's not a movie that I plan on revisiting ever again.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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