The Ghoulish Plot: right off the bat, this movie features the first acting role for Paul Reubens after his porn theater scandal, and I love that in 2024 he’s literally the least problematic person involved with this movie as the writer and several of the stars have gone on to prove themselves sex pests, predators and/or right-wing nut jobs. Not Luke Perry, though. Luke is still cool.

Anyway: valley girl discovers she’s “The Slayer,” one of a long tradition of women who have a preternatural disposition to hunt and kill vampires. She also happens to live in a town and go to school at a spot destined for invasion by a superpowered ancient vampire and his gaggle of vampires, so she undergoes training and begins to kill off all the vamps on her way to the big baddie to save her town.

This movie was a precursor to the far superior TV show, which was also created and executive produced by Joss Whedon, who has created and director some very cool stuff while also turning out to be a gigantic scumbag. And star Kristy Swanson later fell down the conservative rabbit hole and became an election denying anti vaxxer who now just makes movies with James Woods and Dean Cain and Kevin Sorbo that are strongly endorsed by The Heritage Foundation.

This is mostly a horror-comedy that leans heavily on the comedy side, and in a turn that I never thought my brain would think or my fingers would type, the whole California Valley Kid shtick was done much better in the Pauly Shore/Brendan Fraser movie “Encino Man.” Just typing those words out hurt me in ways I can never fully articulate.

The Scariest Part of the Movie: I have no idea how somebody goes from “I starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to “hey, maybe the Earth IS flat” but 2024 is fucking weird, dude.

Spookiness Factor: Almost none

Rating: 2 out of 10 Red Vines