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![]() post Buffy s4 Recently on Buffy, we’ve seen the vamps stuck in ‘Game face mode’ continually, with no ‘morphing’ in sight! A friend of mine, who’d only seen Buffy a few times, even asked me how the vampires managed to integrate into society if they looked like that! (I explained to him about ‘morphing’, and showed him the tape of The Prodigal to demonstrate. As a side effect, he’s now hooked on ‘Angel’!) So just what has happened to Sunnydale’s vampire population? Here are a few musings; The 'bumpy forehead' makeup of Joss’ vampires is truly brilliant, and unique to Buffy. It really adds the sense of menace to the un-dead that is so often lacking in other films/series. (The vamps in 'Blade', for instance, just didn't freak me out the way buffyverse vamps do. I just kept thinking; "Vamp out already!" throughout the entire film!) However, because the design is so effective, the producers are often tempted to over-use it. This leads to the 'constant game face disorder', or CGFD, we so often see on Buffy. The Game face adds a look of menace to non-speaking, background vamps, and also renders them instantly identifiable to the audience. The result is CGFD! When I first watched Buffy, I assumed that the 'Game Face' was fixed on all vamps at 'birth', and they only learned to 'morph' back to human form over time. I gradually began to doubt this, however, and it was finally disproved in The Prodigal, when Angel 'arises' in human form, & then swiftly morphs into snarley mode to drain the unfortunate Irish cliché. (Sorry, gravedigger!) On the whole, Angel has finally sorted out the whole game face deal, and does not suffer from CGFD! Angel's vampires only 'vamp out' when going into attack mode, and are in complete control of their use of the game face. (For example, the vamps in The Prodigal remained in human form until using Kate's Father as a life size milkshake! ) However, Buffy has not adopted this reasoning. Recently, all the vamps seem fixed in game face mode, with CGFD being all-prevalent! This may be because we've seen so little of them lately, while 'Angel' has had time to develop its characters further. (Plus the vamps on 'Angel' are a hellava lot smarter than those on Buffy! Just compare Penn to that jerk in Who are You! ) This seems to indicate that Joss really is stretched between his two 'baby's', and has sacrificed decent vampires on Buffy in an effort to cope. (Which is quite ironic in a show with Buffy’s title!) Opinions
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