I first saw this movie back in 1992 when it was first released, and I thought it was good campy fun, nothing more. When I began watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV series, and saw Joss Whedon's true vision for the story, I realize he must have been furious at how the studio basically rewrote his script. If you are a Buffy fan and you have never seen the movie, it is worthwhile from a historical standpoint to see all of the contrasts.
The movie's Buffy, played by Kristy Swanson, is a tall large girl as opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar's petite Buffy. In the movie, Buffy's mother is a boozing socialite with little time or patience for Buffy and their family appears affluent, as opposed to TV's all-American middle-class mom Joyce. Also in the movie, all victims of vampires become vampires themselves and when vampires are "staked" they do not turn to dust as they do in the series, but leave behind a pesky corpse. Of course, the watcher who first tells Buffy of her calling is not the Giles of the series, but regardless of that, he does not have any of the characteristics of a watcher as we have come to know them on the series. Also, the lead vampire, played by Rutger Hauer, is not the least bit scary. Instead he is more like a villain out of the equally campy Batman TV series.
There is also no mention of vampires lacking a soul. There are a few moments in the movie, though, that have at least the ring of Whedon's brand of humor. What comes to my mind in that category is after Buffy has staked a large number of teen vampires that have invaded her high school dance, the principal is going around putting detention slips on all of the staked teen vampires' corpses as punishment for disrupting the event. This seems very much like something principal Snyder of Sunnydale high school would have done.
