The Lost Boys
The Lost Boys is a classic 80s vampire movie.
Director Joel Schumacher
Writer Janice Fischer
Cast
Warner Bros, Running time 97 minutes.
A mother (Dianne Wiest) and her two sons move to Santa Clara. The older brother Michael (Jason Patric) becomes fascinated with a girl who hangs out with some mysterious bikers.
This film may be getting on in years now. However, it's still very entertaining. It has a unique style and charm. There are some perfect comical and memorable moments.
This movie is behind and has influenced and set the standard for many recent vampire films.
The Lost Boys' visuals perfectly capture the 80s feel and offer nostalgic value.
It captures the best elements of the decade very well, glamorizing the 80s. Most of the characters are likable with solid acting and dialog.
Kiefer Sutherland is brilliant and dominates all the scenes with his charismatic performance; the story is straightforward to follow because of the charm and feel of the movie.
It keeps you very immersed and entertained.
The Lost Boys takes a more comic approach than horror and gore. Nevertheless, some moments create tension and uncertainty, helped by the unique and slightly creepy atmosphere, which makes this very enjoyable.
It's certainly worth a repeat watch or two.
Review:
Even though The Lost Boys isn't a fantastic film (it's excellent far more often than terrible), it's good enough to warrant the entire movie.
This trait is critical for several reasons. It's the first picture to star The Two Coreys, teenagers Corey Feldman and Corey Haim.
Since people did not care in the 1980s, they enjoyed a stellar career together. It's a strong contender for director Joel Schumacher's best film.
So there are two causes, both of which are rather bad. But The Lost Boys don't have to be after.
It's candy, in which a group of teenyboppers banded together under the direction of the guy whose previous film was the seminal '80s adolescent film St. Elmo's Fire.
With vampires, to be precise.
It was produced when vampires were still attractive but animalistic murderers and monsters, rather than brooding romantic heroes, if nothing else.
Those were the days in my life that I'd never forget.
On the other hand, vampires are more of a side dish in The Lost Boys. As the St. Elmo's Fire/teen idol pedigree implies, it is more of a teenage rebellion melodrama that American International Pictures mint on in the 1950s and 1960s.
Because vampires weren't popular back then, they made do with a werewolf.
Vampires are metaphors for teenage hedonism, lack of self-control, and the profound inability to plan for the future.
That is a necessary and constant part of being in your late teens and enjoying yourself - and yes, vampires are almost always metaphors for something or other.
Still, it's pronounced and even strident in this case, and this isn't anything I've noticed myself. Sleep all day, says the slogan on the movie poster.
All night long, party! Never allow yourself to get old. It is impossible to die. But being a vampire is a blast.
Aside from that, the title is a direct allusion to Peter Pan, so it's not like Schumacher or any of the three credited writers were attempting to conceal anything.
For the cast, David (Kiefer Sutherland) plays Peter Pan in this version, an adrenaline addict with a bad blond dye job. Wendy Darling is Michael (Jason Patric).
She has just moved to Santa Carla, California, with his newly divorced mother, Lucy (Dianne Wiest), and younger brother Sam (Corey Haim).
The lingering scene of the loss of sexual innocence, which can be held to be part of Peter Pan's theme, is handled by Star Jami Gertz.
She is a young woman that Michael spots walking down the boardwalk one night, who appears to give him the go-ahead to follow her for flirting and potential making-out.
Still, when he catches up with her, she seems to be David's girl and part of his gang of thrill-seekers, including Paul (Brooke McCarter) (Alex Winter).
Michael almost unconsciously joins this group, drinking a somewhat ceremonial bottle of "wine" that has unusual effects on his head and body.
Such as rendering it partly transparent in a mirror and altering his sleep cycle such that he only wakes up at nightfall and can't bear sunlight on his eyes.
Sam, who has been primed by local comic book nerds and brothers Edgar and Alan (Jamison Newlander) that there are vampires in Santa Carla, make the connection right away.
But fighting the Dark Ones when his brother is already half-vamped is more than the boy can handle.
So he must first persuade Michael of his curse before the two of them, helped by the Frogs, take on David and his crew.
However, phrasing it that way gives the impression that The Lost Boys does have a storyline, which it does not: for an hour, the filmmakers don't even say that David and his cronies are vampires or anything other than particularly nihilistic punks.
And the majority of that hour is spent developing a tone and attitude.
As Sam mucks around, Michael isn't doing anything other than falling more and deeper under David's spell while the viewer waits outside watching him do it.
The hiring of Patric and Sutherland is a godsend for the picture, albeit for entirely coincidental reasons.
Patric is such a bland, blank slate. But, on the other hand, Sutherland has such intoxicating negative charisma he's fascinating precisely because he's so disagreeable.
Their relationship has the dangerous, predatory charge that the screenplay keeps implying without ever explicitly stating it until the third act begins.
Having such a wet noodle as our protagonist also makes it easier for the spectator to overlook him and therefore slip into his role.
He allowed David's seduction of Michael to double as a seduction of ourselves.
From my understanding, Joel Schumacher has never been accepted as a queer director, and he shouldn't be.
There's not much in his films that can withstand that scrutiny. However, The Lost Boys has a considerable, though not startling, a homoerotic charge that stems from Sutherland's sharkish.
Unwelcome overtures towards the mortal kid, Star, who is supposed to be the target of Michael's erotic interest, hardly make an impression.
This is not incidental to the film's success; as a vampire film, a later-day juvenile delinquent shocker, an '80s adolescent lifestyle dream.
And pretty much any other register that we're likely to care about. The attraction between Michael and David is critical to its success.
On the surface, calling it a gay vampire picture would be absurd. However, while Schumacher isn't beyond sexualizing all of his young male stars, I don't believe he's doing it on purpose or methodically.
And not all of the homoeroticism works: there's the classic case of Sam's beefcake pin-up picture of Rob Lowe, strangely hanging right there where no one ever remarks on it.
I have no problems with films that portray young kids as homosexual. Still, movies depicting someone romantically attracted to Rob Lowe give me the creeps.
Whatever the case may be, it's tough not to wonder what was going in Schumacher's mind when he authorized that particular set design.
And it's not the only thing he tries that fails, aside from allowing Feldman to get away with that terrible accent.
With no fewer than three functionally identical helicopter shots sweeping along the ocean and pulling up to show the Santa Carla boardwalk.
A photo that was already tired in 1987 and gets a lot more tired before this movie finishes.
He fumbles the final act when Michael and Sam barricade themselves in the house to fend off David. However, a Schumacher picture that has some terrible judgments is seldom disturbing.
Meanwhile, that it contains such compelling character relationships is startling as heck.
The filmmaker effectively manages the transitions from very light horror, humor, adolescent romance, and action. As he does, proof of a sure hand that I haven't seen in his oeuvre.
Overall, this is just a frothy teen film, edgy enough to depict subcultures and violence to seem more cutting-edge than condescending.
Just free enough with jokes that it's safe for non-horror fans to come in despite a significant amount of blood for its presumed target audience.
But then, teen films weren't half as sanitary and washed-out as now. Moreover, the nervy sexual undertone to the whole thing distinguishes it from most movies in the same category from the same era.
Yet, it's such a minor detail in the grand picture of the film.
Still, it's brief, and it's not nearly as ridiculous as "Peter Pan with vampires." Moreover, the concluding line is excellent, as I previously noted.
I hesitate to contact this anything besides well-made rubbish, but that's precisely what it is, which is well-made rubbish.
It is a breezy, lighthearted adolescent genre film that is pleasant without being brutal and has aged better than most of the other movies of its kind in the 1980s.
I can't say it's a timeless classic or a must-see for everyone, but I've enjoyed it every time I've seen it, so that should be enough.
The younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) meets some strange boys that claim to be Vampire hunters.
