A DonnaWorld Movie Review
The Watcher
This is the sequel to the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the prequel to the popular WB series. It tells the story of a man named Giles, played by Keanu Reeves who has been "chosen" to be a watcher. If you're unfamiliar with the TV show, the Watchers is a council in England which selects one of their members to guide the Slayers. The Slayers are young women who are born with an innate ability to fight vampires, demons, and other forces of evil. Without guidance from a Watcher, the Slayers can become dangerous renegades. On the show, Faith caused lots of trouble when she didn't have an adequate Watcher.
The movie opens in England, with Giles learning the news that he has been selected to take over Watcher duties for a new Slayer named Buffy. Her original Watcher has been killed, and she has been expelled from her L.A. school. She will be moving to Sunnydale with her mother. Giles heads there first and becomes the librarian at Sunnydale High School. This is where we learn that this movie will be much darker than the TV show or the original movie. Upon arriving in Sunnydale, Giles immediately kills Sunnydale High's current librarian, a kindly old woman. As she stacks books in the shelves, Giles sneaks up behind her and strangles her with piano wire. He then proceeds to hack up her body in little pieces and put them in the cafeteria's "mystery meat" barrel.
As if that weren't enough, we are then "treated" to a 37 minute montage of unsuspecting Sunnydale High students munching on hamburgers, steaks, and of course the infamous meat loaf. During this portion of the movie, several audience members left in disgust. I saw at least three people throwing up on the ground, but there may have been more. But back to the movie. During the cafeteria scenes, we are introduced to James Spader and Marisa Tomei who play Xander and Willow.
These aren't the familiar, lovable characters we know from the show though. In fact they are Goth kids wearing large trench coats. They wander into the library after lunch looking for a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook, and meet Giles, who is still wiping up librarian blood from the floor. When they ask what happened to the old librarian, Giles points at the bloody rags and says "What the hell do you THINK happened?" He then starts to march over to them wielding a machete, but stops when he sees Xander reaching into his trench coat. Xander pulls out a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun and aims it straight at Giles' head.
Giles begins laughing, then drops his machete and grabs the shotgun. He swings the handle and knocks Xander unconscious, then he points it at Willow. "Let's see what's under that trench coat, bitch!" Giles tells her and she begins taking it off. As it hits the floor, we see that she was wearing a second trench coat underneath. Giles laughs again, then bends the shotgun over his knee and tosses it aside. Xander wakes up, and the three of them join together to clean up the bloody library. When they're done, they all turn toward the camera and say "Well, nothing to do now but wait for our Slayer!" The credits begin rolling.
Yes, this movie certainly had its problems, and the characters were very different from the way they are in the show, but I give The Watcher four out of four Donnas.
DonnaWorld © 2000-2003 Robert Bray.