It’s a familiar Buffy the Vampire Slayer scene: Buffy and the “Scooby Gang” in Sunnydale High Library or The Magic Box, scouring Giles' dusty tomes and occult texts for clues about their latest foe – be it a demon, ghost, witch, or a god from hell.
These ‘monster of the week’ storylines are typical of this era of television, but as the series wore on, the plethora of demons and supernatural beings began to pose a greater threat than the vampires mentioned in the show's title.
Getting to know the characteristics and history of each new creature proved endlessly entertaining for fans and is a testament to the rich and layered mythology of the Buffyverse. Here’s a look at just ten.
10 Loose-Skinned Demons
Just one Loose-Skinned Demon features in the later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – the recurring character of Clement, or Clem. Unlike the majority of demon species encountered throughout the series, he seems to be relatively benign, so much so that Buffy enlists him as a babysitter for Dawn on one occasion.
A friend of Spike’s, Clem professes a dislike of violence and is often a source of light-comic relief and even emotional insight for other characters in the show. Little is known about his species, only that they suffer prejudice in the demon community for their unsightly skin folds, and that they feed on emotions. Clem even mentions that embarrassment is the “tastiest.”
It’s unclear whether all Loose-Skinned Demons share his gentle nature, or whether Clem is simply a nice guy. His one vice seems to be eating kittens, but he later gives up this habit for “health and moral reasons.”
9 Vengeance Demon
Vengeance Demons are the sinister genies of the Buffyverse. They’re a predominantly female order who seeks out the wronged and mistreated, coaxing them into wishing for vengeance, usually the bloody kind. They have the power to make just about anything a reality, to even alter history and the fabric of time itself, but a human must wish it so. The most notable Vengeance Demon is, of course, Anya, and after she joins the cast in season 3, audiences are given extensive insight into her former race.
Like many of the creatures on this list, Vengeance Demons begin their lives as humans but are given the chance to transform by pure-blooded demon D'Hoffryn after showing a talent for exacting revenge. He endows them with powers through a talisman, giving them the aforementioned wish-granting abilities, immortality, super-human strength, teleportation skills, and the ability to sense the anguish of the downtrodden. Unlike vampires, Vengeance Demons retain their soul, perhaps to allow them to empathize with their subjects.
8 Old One
The mythology of the Old Ones is explored thoroughly in the Buffyverse graphic novels, but they do feature intermittently throughout both the Buffy and Angel TV series.
They are the original, pure-blooded demons that inhabited the earth during the Primordium age. Before the Old Ones were banished and eradicated, some mixed their blood with humans, creating the demon-human hybrids who inhabit the Buffyverse as we know it.
In Angel, the spirit of an Old One, Illyria, possesses the body of the character Winifred. The primary villain in Buffy season 3, Mayor Wilkins, also returns to the pure-demon form of an Old One through a ritual called the "ascension," becoming a gargantuan snake-like creature.
7 Chaos Demon
The introduction to this particular demon is brief but humorous. After Spike fails to defeat Buffy and the gang in season 2, his century-old relationship with the vampire who sired him, Druscilla, becomes strained.
This culminates in Dru cheating on Spike; he catches her making out with a Chaos Demon. His outrage is intensified by this species’ less than desirable appearance, as they have large antlers that perpetually drip slime.
6 Gnarl
Gnarl is a cave-dwelling demon of unknown origin who feeds on human skin; he was once an acquaintance of Anya in her Vengeance Demon days. He has a Gollum-like appearance, with mottled skin, a hooked nose, sharp, overcrowded teeth, and talon-like fingernails. These secrete a paralyzing substance and are used by Gnarl to strip the skin from his immobile victims.
He likes to refer to these unfortunates as “presents” for him to “unwrap,” and talks in creepy, childlike rhymes. It’s unclear whether he is the only one of his kind, or whether he represents an entire demon species.
The only way to remove Gnarl’s paralyzing effect is to kill him, though this is made difficult by his immunity to magic, something that almost proves fatal for Willow.
5 Hans & Gretta Straus
In Buffy season 2, Joyce Summers discovers the bodies of two children who have been seemingly murdered in an occult ritual. This leads to a climate of fear and paranoia in Sunnydale about the supernatural, led by Joyce herself, who is tormented by the children in dreams and visions.
They are Hans and Gretta Straus, who have their origins in the classic Grimm fairytale. Though they appear to be the two innocent, blue-eyed siblings on which the tale is based, in reality, this is merely the form taken by a demon who manifests every fifty years in order to spread strife and terror in communities, leading to mass-hysteria events like the Salem Witch Trials. Buffy is able to thwart his influence moments before she, Willow, and Amy are publicly burned at the stake.
4 Gentlemen
The Gentlemen are among the most celebrated demonic creations in the entire Buffyverse, their appearance in the season 4 episode "Hush" is regarded as a moment of classic '90s TV horror. Clad in pristine suits and carrying doctor’s satchels, they float a few inches above the ground and move with a disturbing, unearthly gracefulness. They never speak, but garish smiles are permanently fixed to their faces, and they interact with one another with exaggerated politeness. They’re accompanied by demons bound in straight-jackets who act as their footsoldiers.
The Gentlemen travel from town to town, collecting seven human hearts from each, and stealing the voices of the unlucky occupants upon their arrival. Only the sound of a human voice can kill them, but their victims can’t even scream as their still-beating hearts are cut out.
3 Santa Claus
Being a thousand-year-old ex-demon, Anya was often able to provide fascinating, albeit horrifying insight into her former community. For example, in season 5, she reveals that Santa Claus is not a fictional character after all and that in the 16th century, someone by that name did fly with a fleet of reindeer on Christmas night and visit children’s homes; however, he did this to disembowel them rather than leave them presents.
That Santa was a demon, although his penchant for disemboweling seemed to have been lost in translation in the popular children’s myth.
2 Der Kindestod
Thanks to its predilection for preying on children, long knife-like fingers, and trilby hat, this demon appears to be a homage to Freddy Kreuger. Its name, Der Kindestod, translates roughly to "child death."
Buffy encounters Der Kindestod after being confined to the hospital with severe flu in season 3. She notices an unusually high number of unexplained deaths on the children’s ward, soon discovering that the Der Kindestod can be seen only by those with a high fever and that it feeds on the life-source of sickly kids. It does this by sucking out their essence through eyes that protrude on stalks.
1 Vampire
When exploring the demon races of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it would be criminal to neglect the one mentioned in the show’s title. Like most demons in the Buffyverse, vampires are a hybrid, the product of a demon mixing its blood with a human. This created The Master, the main antagonist of Buffy season 1 and the vampire that spawned all modern vampires, including Darla, Angel, Spike, and Druscilla.
Vampires possess the bodies of humans when their blood is mingled together, a process called siring. Whilst they lose their human souls when sired, vampires do retain some personality traits of their host. Their weaknesses – sunlight, holy water, crucifixes – are familiar in pop culture, but in Buffy, it’s the confusing line between their human and demonic traits, such as the seeming ability of some to feel love, that is most fascinating about vampires.
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