The Lost Boys

Dir: Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera (2004), The Client, Flatliners)
Source Material: Original screenplay by Janice Fischer and James Jeremais
Cast: Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Jami Gertz, Keifer Sutherland, Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Billy Wirth, Brooke McCarter, Chance Michael Corbitt
USA, 1987

Seen: Originally, at a friends house on VHS. Re-revisited October 4, 2009

Reason to Review: Vampathon: Vampire Film Marathon *

The Lost Boys is a film I've watched if so many times over the years, it's a wonder I've never reviewed or talked about it before. The first time I saw it was over at a friends house where a group of us girls stayed up all night watching horror and cult faves from Rocky Horror to Pet Sematary to... The Lost Boys. I'm sure the fact that the film was stacked with cute guys had nothing to do with the selection. Hehe.

One of the coolest things about the films is the distinct separation of groups of characters, and going with the new folks in town mentality we see these relationships develop through the duration of the film. A weird thing about this is that the bad guys end up being way more interesting than the good. Even weirder, the majority of the bad boy vamps gets tons of screen time but almost no dialogue. I remember this clearly as it was back in the days before IMDb so sleuthing techniques (i.e. 'rewind' and rewatching) was the way to figure out who was who for the evil yet charismatic secondary characters. The dialogue for that group weighed heavily on Keifer Sutherland, who plays a awesome bad guy, and again was way more interesting than the 'good' Michael (Jason Patric's character).

The film has a lot going for it, I've always loved the all the character introductions, the family dynamics and especially the music. The music is such an integral part of the film, not only for setting the tone but the words of songs have literal relevance which is quite crafty. I also really enjoyed Dianne Wiest is as new single Mom who plays a genuine nice person.

In terms of being a vampire film, the lore takes some liberties but not so much that it doesn't feel through and through like a vampire film. It's so strange that The Lost Boys and Near Dark came out the same year, both focusing on vampires, teens and arguable peer pressure.

The humour in the film is one of the highlights, and it's cute and way more goofy than I remembered. It also was more violent than I remembered, but perhaps the R rating on the DVD should have reminded me of that. Most surprizing about revisiting was that overall I didn't think it was as good as a film as it was in my memory. Sure it is fun, highly quotable and there are lots of great characters including awesome hippie chick Star, but overall I wasn't as impressed this time round. I think the comedy was what did it - although I enjoyed it, it felt like it amped up the cheese factor that wasn't a part of the memories of the film. But, for nostalgia reasons and general vampiness, it is still a lot of fun.

Shannon's Overall View:
I enjoyed it
I own it
I recommend it as to fans of 80's horror and/or comedy and vampire films fans

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© Shannon Ridler, 2009

* Vampathon is a 16 week marathon explore vampire films from Nosferatu (1922) up to the upcoming release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon