10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Making Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
2. Joss Whedon Wanted The Gentlemen To Traumatise Children
If you were to create a list of the most terrifying monsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Gentlemen would probably take the top spot. Featured in Season 4’s ‘Hush’, these creepy demons silence the citizens of Sunnydale and cut out the hearts of their unfortunate victims.
Whilst most of the villains in Buffy are inspired by classic horror monsters, the Gentlemen were an original creation, and Joss Whedon wanted to make something that was truly terrifying:
“I had a particular mission here, and that was to traumatise little children. What I basically set out to do…was to have a generation of children say, ‘Do you remember the Gentlemen from that episode of that Buffy show? That traumatised me!’…I wanted something that creepy.”
Whedon certainly accomplished his task. Everything about the Gentlemen is unnerving. The Victorian outfits, the polite mannerisms, the metallic smiles, and the floating feet are impossible to forget, regardless of how old you are.