It's a
Sorry guys.
But, I'm rolling on now, and the movie of the week is .... Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The original 1992 version with Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry. (Day 16 on the vampire blog)
We open with a shot of the middle ages and the Slayer being given her weapon by her watcher. Cut then to modern times, and we see the same girl at cheerleading. We are shown all the major players in the story, then whisked away to the mall with our four teens, who are drooling over a leather jacket.
Little do they know that they are being watched by .... the Watcher.
Outside the mall, the group catch up with their boyfriends, one of which decides to walk home and is attacked by a vampire.
We're given another flashback of the middle ages and see the Slayer battling a mob of vampires, and the Master Lothos. We then learn that it was a nightmare Buffy was having, and cut to a scene of the two head vampires in modern time.
Back at the high school, the senior class are planning a big dance, and you learn just how shallow and uneducated they are.
After school, one of the girls shows up at the local hangout in the leather jacket Buffy had been wanting to buy, and we are introduced to Pike and Bennie. We follow the boys as they are walking home drunk, and Bennie is taken by the same vampire that attacked the other boy. While Pike is rescued by the Watcher.
The next day at school, the Watcher shows up to inform Buffy that she is the Slayer for this generation and has a difficult time getting her to believe him. But he finally convinces her and gets her to go to the graveyard and kills a vampire.
Then we see Pike's apartment and see Bennie floating outside the third story window.
Buffy goes home and has another dream about the master vampire. Meanwhile, one of the girls from school has been taken by the vampires.
The next day after school, Merrick shows up to start Buffy's training, and ends up having to throw a knife at her to check her reflexes, and then the training montage is intercut with scenes of the teens at school being normal teenagers.
Buffy gets called into the principal's office and lectured, and we see some of her natural skills when she stakes a fly from across the room by spitting a thumbtack at it.
From there, we see Pike getting ready to runaway, only to get trapped by a group of vampires and Buffy save him. She ends up having to take him back to her place and patch him up. We then see the two head vampires talking over the whole situation.
Buffy goes then to the school basketball game, and we see the first kid who was attacked by the vampires. He has been turned into one, and Buffy chases him out of the school into a warehouse killing him. Pike has followed her, and they bump into the two head vampires. Merrick is also there, and as he tries to stake the master vampire, he ends up getting killed himself.
Back at school the next day, we see the group of girls decorating for the dance, and Buffy tries to talk to them about what's going on in her life and they snub their noses at her. We then see Buffy and Pike talking about the dance, where he tells her that she shouldn't be wasting her time on things like that now that they know the truth about vampires. Bennie overhears them talking and tells the two head vampires that Buffy is going to be at the school dance.
At the dance, the in-crowd are standing around mocking everyone, as Buffy comes in looking for her boyfriend, only to find out he's there with someone else. Pike crashes the party just before all the vampires show up.
The two of them try to stop the chaos but it's more then they can handle. Pike and Bennie square off, as Buffy ends up in the basement battling first Amilyn, then Lothos. But the battle between Buffy and Lothos ends up back upstairs in the middle of the dance. As she stakes him, and everyone runs away screaming, Pike and Buffy share a silent dance.
The last scene is the two of them riding off into the sunrise on Pike's bike. As the credits roll, we see the remaining teens talking to a news crew about the vampires.
And one final "out take" of Amilyn's death scene.
This has one of the best quotes when Pike introduces himself and Buffy says "Pike isn't a name it's a fish."
This is one of those films that is great because of the campy style, and because it is so locked into a generational mode. It's got some of the most common cliches that were found in movies from the 80's, the school dance, the training montage, the mall scenes. It's also very much a marker for the 90's with its wardrobe and music. There is just this cool undertone that vibrates from the way the film is balancing on the end of the one decade.
I've always been interested in knowing what it would have been like if Pike and Bennie had been given their own spin off? The character of Bennie always seemed to me like he was meant originally to be a bigger role then what ended up in the film.
Okay guys, again sorry it's a day late
till next time.
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