Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the modestly successful 1992 movie and hit television series that began airing on the Warner Bros. Network in March 1997, has developed a wide fan base and is attributed to generating a light-hearted interest in vampires among teenagers of the 1990s. Now immersed in the popular culture, Buffy was created by Joss Whedon who also wrote the screenplay for the movie.
The storyline centers upon Buffy Summers, a cheerleader at Hemery High School in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. As she went about her vapid existence in which the next trip to the mall or the school dance were her only concerns, she met a strange man named Merrick (Donald Sutherland) who informed her that she was the Chosen One. Once each generation, there is a Chosen One who will stand alone against the vampires and the forces and entities of the evil supernatural world. That person is called the Slayer. As can be imagined, this news was, to say the least, most disturbing to the young teenager.
Buffy initially rejected the idea, but the naturally athletic cheerleader also found herself drawn to Merrick, the man destined to be her trainer. She had had strange dreams in which she faced enigmatic creatures in historical settings. Merrick claimed that her dreams were, in fact, her memories of real events from previous lives. He also claimed that he was also present when they occurred.
Once he secured Buffy's attention, Merrick elaborated on her role as one of the Order of Slayers. Each woman who was a Slayer had a birthmark on her left shoulder. Each was reincarnated over and over again and spent each new lifetime stopping the spread of vampirism. History aside, Buffy had a more immediate crisis. Lothos (Rutger Hauer), a 1,200-year-old vampire king, had come to Los Angeles, and Merrick took Buffy to the local cemetery to observe the emergence of some of Lothos' first victims from their graves. Her encounter with the new vampires convinced Buffy of the truth of all Merrick had told her.
While trying to lead an outwardly normal life, Buffy spent her afternoons perfecting her fighting skills which she demonstrated each evening on Lothos' minions (staking being the preferred method of dispatching them). Her activity soon caught the attention of Lothos, who in his anger killed Merrick. He also concluded that Buffy was the new Slayer. Because she stood between him and his destiny she had to be slain. He gathered his group of new followers for an attack upon the upcoming school dance in the gym. At the dance, Buffy squared-off against Lothos, although it took all of her martial arts skills. During the fight, she made a stake from a broken chair and drove it home with a well-placed kick. Lothos died with the now immortalist word, "Oops!"
With Lothos out of the way, it appeared that Buffy could finish her high school and resume her vampire slaying as an adult. But such was not to be the case. As would be made known in 1997 in the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, at some time not long after killing Lothos, she burned down the very gym in which Lothos had died in order to destroy more of his minions. She was then transferred to a suburban high school in the community of Sunnydale.
Buffy and her mother hoped to finally resume a normal life, but each episode revealed that was not to be the case. She was bothered by dreams and, more importantly, was the one who understood the significance of the wave of deaths and disappearances among her new classmates. One body had even dropped out of a locker in the gym. Buffy met Giles, the librarian, who offered her a book on vampires.
Very early in her career at Sunnydale, Buffy found a support group among a small group of students who learned of the reality of vampires and Buffy's distinctive position in life. Willow (Alyson Hannigan) is a shy computer nerd, pretty, but slow in being socialized. Xander (Nicholas Brendon) is a young teen who is too unhip to be popular. Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) one of the most popular (and shallow) girls in school, was rewarded for her attempts to introduce Buffy into the circle of the school's elites by being drawn into her supernatural world. The group was held together by the wise Giles, whose library also became their headquarters. He particularly relied on Willow to extend his knowledge through her access to the Internet .
Only reluctantly did Buffy reconcile herself to her Chosenness. Her immediate task was to handle the Master, a powerful ancient vampire king who had planned to renter the world of humans from which he has been banished. Each century there is an evening, called the Harvest, when he can select another vampire, a vessel, and send him out into the world. On the evening in question, his vessel Luke took over The Bronze, a teen club, and began to feed. The Master felt the strength received from each feeding, as if he had been feeding himself. Unfortunately for the Master, before he could gain the strength to break free, Buffy arrived and killed Luke.
The key person in her last-minute rescue of her classmates was a young man who warned her about the Harvest. Although he appeared to be a young man only a few years older than Buffy, he turned out to be a 240-year-old vampire named Angel (David Boreanaz). Once a vicious killer, he encountered some Gypsies who punished him by restoring his soul, or conscience. With a restored soul, Angel found that he could no longer kill.
Although Buffy stopped the Master, it was only temporary. He would be back and it would be Angel who again intervened and told of a prophecy indicating that on the following evening Buffy would have to fight the Master; she would lose. The next evening, at the school dance, Buffy and the Master did fight, and Buffy did lose. However, she was rescued and revived by her friends and ended the season's initial offering by ending the Master permanently.
Buffy began the second year at Sunnydale somewhat more accepting of her purpose in life, but Angel dominated her attention. Their relationship grew through the school year and eventually culminated in their sharing an intimate moment. As a result, Angel lost his soul again and reverted to his former vicious nature. As the second season ended, Buffy, still in love, knew she must kill Angel, and she made the first blow in that effort. Although Angel lost his soul, he retained a memory of his love for Buffy. Thus the tension was set for future confrontations. In the meantime, Buffy had to foil the various plots of the two new kids on the street, Spike and Drusilla. As older vampires, sans soul/conscience, they were fully prepared to use all their guile to make life miserable for Buffy and her friends.
As an outgrowth of the success of the television show, a new set of novels based upon it have appeared, the first being written by Ritchie Cusick who wrote the novelization of the movie.
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Spectrum 13 (May 1998): 8-23.
Cusick, Ritchie Tankersley. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. New York:
Archway/Pocket Books, 1992. 183 pp.
---. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Harvest. New York: Archway/Pocket
Books, 1997. 146 pp.
Cover, Arthur Byron. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Night of the Living Brain.
New York: Archway/Pocket Books, 1998. 178 pp.
Golden, Christopher, and Nancy Holder. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween
Rain. New York: Archway/Pocket Books, 1997. 162 pp.
Vornholt, John. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Coyote Moon. New York:
Archway/Pocket Books, 1998 164 pp.
