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"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," 1992. Kristi Swanson, Donald Sutherland. Directed by Fran Kuzui.

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"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," 1992. Kristi Swanson, Donald Sutherland. Directed by Fran Kuzui.
I've always enjoyed the series. Now I have to see the movie.

http://thedissolve.com/features/by-the-numbers/929-the-cold-hard-stats-of-vampire-comedies-1948-2012/

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Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

It’s rare that the first entry in a franchise is relegated to a footnote within that franchise’s overarching lore, but that’s precisely the position the 1992 comedy Buffy The Vampire Slayer holds within the Buffy-verse. Preceding Joss Whedon’s beloved cult TV show by five years, Fran Rubel Kuzui’s film is a sort of dry run for a pre-Sarah Michelle Gellar Buffy Summers, and an unfortunate object lesson in how a Whedon project can go spectacularly off the rails when placed in the wrong hands.

Whedon, who wrote the Buffy screenplay, was famously displeased with Kuzui’s final product, which Whedon thought didn’t do right by the character who went on to become his most beloved creation. It’s easy to see why: The Buffy movie is a mess, albeit one that can’t entirely obscure the potential beneath its flat performances, sluggish pacing, and cheap visuals. Mannequin Two: On The Move star Kristy Swanson sleepwalks through the role of ditzy teenage vampire-slayer Buffy, wearing an expression of perpetual bemusement as she attempts to wrap her mouth around Whedon’s signature snappy dialogue. (The script was heavily altered, making it even easier to pick out the genuine Whedon bits amid all the junk.) She’s offered little assistance from a similarly at-sea Luke Perry as a leather-jacketed bad boy she teams up with, or from sleepy lion Donald Sutherland as Buffy’s pre-Giles Watcher, Merrick. Together, the three of them take on a series of slow-moving, bat-like vampires born of local vampire king Lothos (Rutger Hauer) and his acolyte Amilyn (Paul Reubens). Hauer and Reubens seem to be the only ones clued into Buffy’s campy nature, and they deliver relatively lively performances that still can’t bring this one back from the dead—though Reubens’ protracted, improvised death scene briefly threatens to do so. [GK]

Paul Reubens was the best thing about the movie.