Thanks to Julie Benz, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Slayed Expectations from Minute One

Buffy the Vampire Slayer existed to subvert expectations. That’s evident from Joss Whedon’s elevator pitch for the 1992 movie that later spawned a medium-redefining TV show: what if the girl that’s always getting attacked and killed in alleys at the beginning of horror movies didn’t just fight back, but kicked supernatural ass?

When Whedon revisited his idea for a TV show, he had to get that subversion across ASAP. The cold opening for the pilot episode, “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” had to set the tone for the series by flipping the script once again, but the idea of a female slayer of the undead wasn’t exactly novel at this point. Unlike a few years earlier, there was now name recognition with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if not from people that actually saw the movie in theaters then from those that regularly saw a VHS copy of the film on the shelves at Blockbuster week after week for years. You go into the show expecting a blonde teen with a stake in her hand because it’s right there in the title. How do you surprise people? Leave that to Julie Benz. For her birthday today, we’re gonna celebrate the iconic TV moment Benz gave us.

The very first Buffy cold open is straight out of the high school horror handbook. After a 10-second narration about Slayer lore, we cut to Sunnydale High after dark. It’s empty, it’s creepy, it’s a death trap for movie teens. A fist crashes through the window of a science lab, giving entry to two characters we were expecting to see: the horny bad news dude and the shy schoolgirl played by Julie Benz. He wants to get her to the roof, but she nervously wonders if they should stay in the empty hallway. They hear a noise (of course they hear a noise) and she gasps out a “What was that?” The guy, clad in the kind of leather duster that will later be worn by all of Buffy’s baddest brooding boys, brushes off all the spookiness. He’s a tough dude, so tough that he can have a little fun at the meek girl’s expense. “Maybe it’s some thing” he says, casually raising his hands as claws. Turns out he should be worried. There is something terrifying lurking in the halls–it’s her.

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie showed us that women could be horror movie heroes, then Buffy the Vampire Slayer the show showed us that women could also be the horrors. Not only can the women fight back in that alley, they can also be the monster that goes for the jugular–and not in a sexy Italian vampire ’70s horror-porn way, either. This vampire, the very first vampire we see in the entire series, is terrifying. Her face is demonic, contorted into an animalistic terror, all bumps and blunt fangs. Even her hair goes from no fuss to all muss with a turn of her head. This isn’t a lady vampire that’s there to be objectified. This is a lady vampire that’s there to terrorize.

That’s it. That’s the show, summed up in just two minutes of content. Buffy’s a show where the normal rules don’t apply even if the game’s one you’ve played before, and that’s all established in this shocking cold open–and it’s all because of Benz and the way she was able to switch from the kind of terrified, helpless girl we see in movies all the time to the kind of sadistically feral monster we rarely get to see a female character be. Benz has the first line of dialogue in the entire series, she’s the first vampire, she’s the first major character you meet. As the Master’s primary troublemaker and Angel’s sire/ex, Darla played a recurring role in Buffy Season 1 before going on to reappear for a full-fledged, chaotic character arc over the course of Angel’s run. And while a lot of other vampires got way more screentime across the shows (Angel, Spike, Drusilla), it was Darla and that fang-flashing quick turn that set the tone for everything that would follow. Julie Benz was, in that moment, the face of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Stream Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Welcome to the Hellmouth" on Hulu