Amber Benson

CHANCE (Unrated)

Chance presents a great temptation to rabid fans of the late, great Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Written, directed and produced by Amber Benson, who played the doomed witch Tara for a couple of seasons, the low-low-low-budget romantic comedy from 2002 stars Benson and popular Buffy alum James Marsters — truly the best thing that ever happened to the TV series — as roommates who can’t quite make the leap to becoming lovers.

Chance (Benson) is a free spirit with a trust fund who shuns commitment; loser Simon (Marsters, sporting his bleached Buffy locks), a phone salesman with bad body odor, can’t get a date despite cheekbones for miles and the sort of washboard abs one dreams about seeing in real life.

But even Buffy fans will be wretchedly disappointed. Chance is a shockingly inept, incoherent mess, poorly written and abominably directed, with virtually nothing to recommend it. Benson strives for a punky edginess — Chance narrates her romantic and unbearably dull parental woes directly to the camera with a lively variety of obscenities and intersperses appearances by a guitar-wielding troubadour singing of lust, longing and some other angsty 20-something stuff. But most of her musings — we’re all afraid of death and wary of romantic entanglements — are as inane and pedestrian as her rebellious and baffling actions, which include, but are not limited to, dressing Simon in drag and painting a goatee on herself to greet her mother when she comes to visit.

There’s one intriguing moment: the appearance of Andy Hallett, formerly of Angel, without his green demon makeup. Beyond that, though, Chance, despite Benson’s best efforts, just gives indie quirkiness a bad name.

Cast: Amber Benson, James Marsters, Andy Hallett, Tressa DiFiglia.

Director/screenwriter/producer: Amber Benson.

A Small Planet Pictures release. Running time: 80 minutes. Language, sexual situations. In Broward only: Las Olas.