Buffy the Vampire Slayer

(1992) dir Fran Rubel Kuzui w/Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens [86 min; DCP]

Before Buffy there was…Buffy. Five years before Joss Whedon’s watershed TV show, his vampire-slaying heroine had a movie all her own featuring Kristy Swanson as the stake-wielding Chosen One who learns that her destiny is destroy the undead. While Whedon’s original screenplay was altered (the film is not considered part of the Buffy cannon) – giving the film a campier tone, the TV series’ DNA is there, making the film a fascinating rough draft.