Editorials
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Ended 13 Years Ago Today
In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.
On May 20, 2003 Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air for good. Joss Whedon’s groundbreaking series about a Los Angeles teenager who was chosen to save the world (a lot) by fighting the forces of evil (it wasn’t just vampires y’all) until her death. Buffy the Vampire Slayer holds a special place in many people’s hearts, and for good reason. It was filled to the brim with relatable, quirky and lovable characters that happened to live on top of a Hellmouth.
To say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was critically lauded would be an extreme understatement. Since it premiered in 1997, it has ranked among many top publications’ “Best Of” lists,* including (but not limited to):
- 41st on TV Guide’s list of 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
- 2nd on Empire‘s “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time”
- 27th on The Hollywood Reporter‘s “Hollywood’s 100 Favorite TV Shows”
- 3rd in 2004 and 2007 on TV Guide‘s “Top Cult Shows Ever”
- Listed in Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All-Time”
- List of “The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time” and ranked it #38 on its list of the “60 Best Series of All Time”.
- 3rd Best School Show of All Time by AOL TV.
*From Wikipedia.
It is interesting to talk to a younger generation about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even today, 13 years after its end, it is still misunderstood as “that silly show about a girl who fights vampires” by people who have never seen it. Or they start to watch the first season and think it’s lame (Just make it to season 2 you guys! “Surprise” was the turning point episode for me). If only everyone could have had the same experience so many other did while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a truly special experience.
To describe my passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how emotionally tied to it I am would take a novel’s worth of words, but I just wanted to use this space to bring attention to one of the greatest television shows of all time. Joss Whedon really made me feel like these characters were actually my friends, and watching reruns after the series ended was an important part of my teenage years (it’s very queer-friendly, in case you didn’t already know). It’s also a big part of the reason I would sell my soul to Satan himself to get to meet Sarah Michelle Gellar (or Emma Caulfield, or Alyson Hannigan, or Eliza Dushku, et al). But I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a time in my life when I was bullied and picked on frequently, so the series acted as my safe haven. My umbrella, if you will. I feel like a lot of fans of the series were in a similar situation as me, and in that the show has brought many of us together.
As was usually the case with shows of Buffy’s kind, I was not allowed to watch it while I was growing up. My parents didn’t let me start watching it until I was in 8th grade, which is when the final season aired. I was just 14 when the series went off the air, and by that time I had rapidly caught up during the previous year by watching the reruns FX would air at 5am and 6am every morning (they would re-air those same episodes at 3pm and 4pm that afternoon, so it made it easy to catch up in case I missed one). By the time the finale aired I was mostly caught up, and what a satisfying finale “Chosen” was.
I could go on and on about how I’ve seen “Once More, With Feeling” at least 20 times and how I play the soundtrack on my iPhone at least once a month. I could describe the seven episodes that have made me cry (“Passion,” “The Body,” “The Gift,” “Hell’s Bells,” “Grave,” “Selfless” and “Chosen”). I could explain my reasoning behind ordering the seasons from best to worst like this: 3, 5, 2, 6, 4, 7, 1 (it’s not that I hate the first season, it just hasn’t aged nearly as well as the others). I could even write a character study on why Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins Harris is the absolute best character in the show.
I won’t do any of that though, because I want to hear all of your thoughts and stories on this fantastic series. If you’ve never watched it, go to Netflix right now and start a binge-watch. Just make it past that first season (as I mentioned above, it’s always difficult to get people into Buffy specifically because that first season, sans the finale, has not aged very well). If you’ve already seen the entire series three times or more, take an hour today to go back and re-watch “Chosen,” the series finale of this truly special show.
What are your fondest memories of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? What were some of your favorite episodes? Who were your favorite characters? Do you still watch episodes on Netflix (or your DVD box sets) today? Let us know in the comments below or shoot me a Tweet, as I’m always game for discussing some Buffy. In the meantime, please enjoy these 50 amazing Anya moments.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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