AmateurMovieReviews.com

The Story: Vampires are terrorizing California and only the slayer can save the day.

The movie that spawned a hit television show of the same name. Buffy is your cliched fashion-obsessed valley girl, but lately she's been having weird dreams. In them she becomes other people, other girls who lived centuries ago and who seem to always be fighting a mysterious stranger. Her nightmares are scary enough, but back in the real world several of her classmates have recently begun turning up dead...with some nasty neck mutilations. Hmm, what in the world could it--AHH! Why vampires of course, and as it turns out, Southern California has become a new hot spot for the bloodsuckers.

Enter into the picture Merrick who tells Buffy that she is the new slayer. Apparently, as long as vampires have been around there have been girls gifted with special abilities to fight them and save humanity. Buffy's dreams were about the old slayers, he tells her, and the foe she faces in them is a nasty and powerful vampire named Lothos. Merrick tells Buffy that it is her fate to battle it out with Lothos, whether she wants to or not.
As one might imagine, Buffy is not thrilled with the idea of battling the undead and she believes it more likely that Merrick is just a dirty old man with delusions. Merrick decides to prove his story so he takes Buffy to the graveyard, where he tells her to sit near a fresh grave...one of the recent victims of the mysterious string of killings. Before long, out pops a vampire and Buffy has to save Merrick and kill the creature.

And so begins Slayer Training 101. Merrick does his best to teach Buffy all the cool vampire dispensing tactics and other lessons he's learned over the years. Buffy still isn't into the idea of having to give up her social life to battle Dracula, but she gets the hang of things. While slayer training drags on, Lothos and his helpers are raising an army of vampires to take over the city. And humanity's only hope lies with Buffy...the VAMPIRE SLAYER!

This is really a great little film, cheesy in parts (and with a title like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, how could it not be?) but very fun nonetheless. Paul Reubens (aka PeeWee Herman) has a role in the film as Lothos' right hand man, er, vampire. If I didn't see his name on the box, I might not have recognized him with the long hair and make-up. Paul brings a lot of humor to the movie (though he never uttered "I know you are but what am I? HeHe") and that's one of the things I enjoyed most. The movie doesn't always play things straight. Both Paul Reubens and others like David Arquette lighten the mood a lot, which is something I appreciate in horror films, at least to some extent.
Playing opposite of the humor side of things is Donald Sutherland as Merrick. I think Donald really nailed his role and brought a sense of reality to the movie. Kristy Swanson does a good job in her portrayal of Buffy, transforming from a shallow, airheaded teenager to a kick-ass vampire slayer.

Another plus to the film is that the filmmakers did a good job of building suspense, from that moment when you know something is going to happen, to a vampire popping out. A lot of the night scenes especially, are just dripping with creepy atmosphere.
The major flaw of the movie is sometimes it goes overboard with the humor into the territory of just plain stupid. Near the end of the film, the principal of Buffy's high school is seen handing out detention slips to dead vampires (HAHA...oh wait) and a lot of the dialog between Buffy and her like-minded friends comes off pretty dumb as well. I'm all for mixing humor and horror, but I'm a little picky when it comes to putting humor in any kind of movie...it should be funny.

Fortunately though, the strengths of the movie outweigh the weaknesses. This is one of my favorite vampire movies of the 90's and I fear I may be alone in my opnion, but hey, opinions are like...you know. I say see the movie and judge for yourself.