Editorials
10 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Moments Guaranteed to Make You Cry
Everyone knows that Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans are the best kind of fans. We’re all so nice! My adoration for Joss Whedon’s television series has given me some incredible friends and also helped me through some really difficult times in life. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows in Sunnydale though, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer frequently caused audiences to cry their eyes out over what was happening on their television screens. I know that a list like this has been replicated a thousand times on other websites with several of the same moments included, but I’ve never written one of them so I’m taking this opportunity to say my piece on the subject. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was filled with countless tear-jerking moments, and these are the ten that made me sob the hardest. I’ve also linked to each specific scene (if available) in case you’re feeling masochistic and want to watch it.
***MAJOR SPOILERS for Buffy the Vampire Slayer Below***
Giles Discovers Jenny’s Corpse (Season 2, Episode 17: “Passion”)
It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace.
-Angelus
This is the first time I ever remember crying during Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I know. I didn’t cry the first time she died. I’m soulless). It wasn’t Jenny’s death so much as it was Giles’ reaction to finding her body. You all know the story: Angelus wasn’t satisfied by simply killing Jenny. Oh no, he had to put on display for the man that loved her. Giles walks into his house to the sound of opera music and rose petals leading up the stairs to his bedroom, only to find Jenny’s corpse on the bed. The cherry on top of this was that Angelus left Giles a drawing of her to frame and put on his wall. Don’t even get me started on Buffy having to stop him from trying to kill Angelus. Ugh, this was rough, y’all.
Buffy Kills Angel (Season 2, Episode 22: “Becoming: Part 2”)
Close your eyes.
-Buffy Summers
Joss Whedon is an expert at tormenting his audience, and by that I mean killing beloved characters. Angel losing his soul and becoming Angelus is one of the greatest twists the show ever pulled off. In the second season finale, Angelus awakens the demon Acathla by pulling a sword out of its chest. He and Buffy get in a totally awesome sword fight and just as she is about to kill him he gets his soul back (thanks Willow). But it’s too late! He has already awoken Acathla and only his blood can prevent the demon from sucking the world into a Hell dimension, so she gives him a final kiss before stabbing him with the sword. If there was ever any doubt that Buffy would “go there,” this scene effectively got rid of them (and this is coming from a show that killed its title character in the first season finale).
Buffy Summers: Class Protector (Season 3, Episode 20: “The Prom”)
Whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you or helped by you at one time or another. We’re proud to say that the class of ’99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history, and we know at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class offers its thanks and gives you, uh, uh, this. It’s from all of us, and it has written here, “Buffy Summers, Class Protector”.
-Jonathan Levinson
Not all tear-jerking moments have to be sad, you guys! After three years of saving the world, Buffy finally (finally!) received some recognition in the form of a sparkly gold umbrella. It was a rare win for the Slayer, and provided one of the most cathartic experiences of the series. It also has the distinction of being Sarah Michelle Gellar’s favorite episode of the series.
Buffy Finds Her Mother’s Body (Season 5, Episodes 15-16: “I Was Made to Love You” and “The Body”)
Mom? Mom? Mommy?
-Buffy Summers
Is there a better scene in any episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I would argue not. The rest of the scene, which opens the next episode (aptly titled “The Body”). Filmed without sound and filmed in real time (the first three minutes of “The Body” don’t feature any cuts), Buffy’s discovery of her mother’s body it a truly disturbing piece of television and it feels all too real. If you don’t even slightly tear up while watching Buffy realize that her mother is actually dead, then you have no soul.
Anya’s Fruit Punch Speech (Season 5, Episode 16: “The Body”)
I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she’s- There’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead anymore. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid. And-and Xander’s crying and not talking, and-and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she’ll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why!
-Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins
This episode aired on my birthday, you guys. My birthday. Does this need any more explanation? Anya was typically used as the comic relief on the series (and Emma Caulfield excelled at it), but this is the first time we had ever seen Anya truly show human emotion. She had spent so much time as a demon that she forgot what it was like to lose someone close to her. The speech is almost child-like, and it proved to be one of the most memorable moments in what is arguably Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s best episode.
Buffy’s Sacrifice (Season 5, Episode 22: “The Gift”)
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
-Buffy Summers
Buffy already died once. Surely they wouldn’t kill her again, right? Wrong. The final episode to air on the WB before it moved to UPN served as the first series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (like its titular heroine, the show would die twice). Another apocalyptic ritual requires Summers blood to stop it. Buffy realizes that she can be the sacrifice instead of Dawn, meaning that death is her gift. Could you imagine if this had actually been the series finale? I know seasons 6 and 7 have their detractors, but it would have killed me if this would have been the end of the series. It was traumatizing to lose Buffy again, but at least she got a great epitaph on her tombstone: “She saved the world. A lot.”
Dawn Cuddles With the Buffybot (Season 6, Episode 1: Bargaining, Part 1)
That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!
-Buffybot
Dawn is frequently the figurative punching bag of Buffy fans, but she does have her moments (unless she wants you out of her room). Seeing her crawl into bed with a charging Buffybot as a method of coping with her sister’s death is so pitiful that you can’t help but empathize with her. It’s unhealthy but so, so human, and anyone who has lost someone close to them could relate. Rather than move on, you want to hang on to anything that reminds you of the person you lost. This is one of those subtle moments that is deeply affecting to watch.
Anya is Left at the Altar (Season 6, Episode 16: “Hell’s Bells”)
I, Anya, promise to love you, to cherish you, to honor you, ah, but NOT to obey you, of course, because that’s anachronistic and misogynistic and who you do you think you are, like a sea captain o-or something?
-Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins
I bawled my eyes out over this. Bawled. It was the moment when I started hating Xander as a character (him supporting the Potentials kicking Buffy out of the house in Season 7 sealed the deal). Look, I get that he was worried he was going to turn into his father and ruin his life with Anya, but those visions he saw were fake! He had no reason to leave her at the altar. The dissolution of Anya and Xander’s relationship will always be one of those moments that makes you want to strangle Whedon because it’s so soul-crushing.
Xander and the Yellow Crayon (Season 6, Episode 22: “Grave”)
I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I’m going out, it’s here.
-Xander Harris
The final three episodes of season 6 are some of the strongest episodes the show has ever put out, and while Tara’s death is incredibly sad, it was Xander reaching out to Willow and ending her reign of terror that truly started the waterworks. By referencing the day they met, when Willow broke a yellow crayon in kindergarten and didn’t want to tell anyone about it, he taps into regular Willow (thanks to the magic Giles used on her earlier in the episode) and is able to use his love to drain the dark magic out of her. It’s less cheesy than it sounds. Seriously though after three episodes of watching Willow lose it after Tara’s death, this was an incredibly cathartic moment that allowed viewers to break down with her.
Anya’s Death (Season 7, Episode 22: “Chosen”)
Bunnies! Floppy, hoppy, bunnies!
-Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins
Can you tell I have a soft spot for Anya? She occupies three slots on this list for a reason, you know? We all knew Spike was going to be resurrected later that year on Angel so his death, while sad, doesn’t hold a candle to the finality of Anya’s death. After a long, long life of avoiding battle, Anya finally joined in on the fight. What does she get for it? A quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it death. Xander doesn’t even find her body! We just get that awful shot of him looking for her with a glimpse of her corpse under the rubble.
You have no idea how difficult it was to narrow this list down to just 10 moments (and maybe I’m biased towards Anya). I’ve cried way more than 10 times watching this fantastic series so there was no way to do it justice by just limiting it to 10 moments, which is where you all come in. Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer moments made you cry the hardest? Let me know in the comments below!
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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