10 '90s Horror Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen

When we say Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we are not talking about the era-defining, Sarah Michelle Gellar-starring TV show that set late-'90s and early-'00s pop culture aflame with beloved characters, quirky dialogue and all the fashion you could throw at it. We're talking about the film it was based on.

Directed by long-time Buffy TV show exec Fran Rubel Kuzui, and written by mastermind of the whole enterprise Joss Whedon, the original movie has cheerleader Buffy Summers (here played by Kristy Swanson) discover her powers and face the uncomfortable transition from ditzy blonde to vamp-slaying badass.

Back in the early 1990s, before he had made a name for himself working on Alien Resurrection and Toy Story and the like, Whedon was small potatoes. Thus, when the movie bombed, so few people took notice that it wasn't difficult to rework, rebrand and remodel the whole affair into a piece of solid gold zeitgeist a mere four years down the line.

Fans of the show and dedicated completionists may still give the movie the occasional airing, but by everyone else's measure it is long since dead and buried.