Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Few would have banked on the 1992 film version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer becoming anything more than a dollar-bin rental—even screenwriter Joss Whedon, who thankfully rescued it from obscurity by repackaging it as a television series. Buffy proved to be that rare instance of a revamp gone right, and television as the perfect medium for Whedon to spin stories about a teenaged slayer chosen by fate to fight vampires and other evils. The original film—which stars Kristy Swanson as Buffy, Donald Sutherland as her Watcher, and Luke Perry as brooding burnout Pike—endears purely as a novelty, a laughably hokey ’90s flick that somehow spawned one of the best television series ever. 

Updated 06/17/2010