BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

"Buffy" (Kristy Swanson) is a typical teenage cheerleader. Happy to go through life with her handsome boyfriend worrying, with her friends, about what to wear at the senior's ball. Enter Donald Sutherland's "Merrick" who can see into her rather florid dreams. Next thing, she is in a graveyard in the dead of night demonstrating some neat ninja vampire-impaling skills as she learns that she is the object of the desires of arch-vampire "Lothos" (Rutger Hauer). Luckily for her, pixie-esque, hapless mechanic "Pike" (Luke Perry) is on hand to help her as this small town soon becomes little better than a farm for their new hungry visitors. Yep, it's terrible. The acting relies on some serious ham from Messrs. Sutherland, Hauer and Raul Reubens' "Amilyn" as well as some cheery acrobatics with backflips and somersaults galore. Swanson plays her part for all that it's worth; I certainly couldn't fault her enthusiasm and Perry was an handsome man and provides an extra degree of slightly comedic eye-candy in what is otherwise a throwaway television movie that is probably only ever going to be remembered for spawning the television series five years later. I didn't hate it, I have to say. It reminded me of the whole "Beverly Hills 90210" fever that hit the UK at the start of the 1990s, and taken in the context of a light-hearted teen flick with little or no scare, gore, or horror is just about watchable.