The Lost Boys (1987)
Review by Siko Mike
Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) Emerson are all-American teens that are moving to Santa Carla, California after the recent divorce of their parents. Their mother (Dianne Wiest) decided that it would be great for them to live at their grandfather’s house. Grandpa (Barnard Hughes) doesn’t have a television, so it is up to the two brothers to start making friends in their new ocean-surrounded town. Older Michael meets a pretty girl named Star (Jami Gertz) who hangs with a few wild and crazy biker boys. Meanwhile, Sam meets Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander) who run a comic book store. The Frog brothers warn Sam that there are vampires in Santa Carla, which he doesn’t believe until his older brother Michael begins to act really strange.
Michael wears sunglasses during the day along with sleeping most of the time. Sam discovers that Michael’s reflection is fading in the mirror, so he immediately calls the Frog brothers for help. He discovers that the biker teenagers that Michael is running around with are vampires and that they have turned Michael into “half” vampire. Once Michael makes his first kill then he will become a full blooded vampire and there will be no turning him back. The only way to save his brother is to find and slay the master vampire. Time is running out, so Sam and the Frog brothers must slay these blood suckers before they turn Michael into one of the undead.
Being young is something that most people cherish in life because it only lasts for so long before they begin to age. What if there was a way to stay young forever? This fantasy was made true in the story of the legendary Peter Pan and his band of lost boys. These boys ran wild because they never wanted to grow up and were afraid to. I feel the same way sometimes even though I am an adult now and my youth is draining quickly. Getting older is scary to most people including myself. I mean you go bald, your body tires out easy, your teeth fall out, your skin gets wrinkly, and you eventually die. Youth has its advantages because we remember what it is like being a child. Most older adults forget that feeling of reading comic books, playing spin the bottle, playing video games, watching horror movies late at night with the lights off, riding bikes, having water gun fights in the summer time, and just plain having fun.
I hate it when the older people tell us to grow up or stop acting like a child. We all have that youth buried somewhere deep inside of us, so why can’t we be a kid again? Who says that age matters? I’m an adult and my eyes still light up when I see a movie from my childhood. I actually miss it and sometimes wish that I could go back to the 1990′s when I still had my childhood. Those were great times that I cherish and wished would come back some day.
The Lost Boys was a whole lot more than just a vampire tale, but dealt with the same thing that Peter Pan was all about except in a horror film way. I thought that this film took a great concept from a childhood fairy tale and placed it in a vampire story that shows how being young forever can be a bad thing even though it would sound like the greatest thing ever. The problem with being a vampire comes from having to drink blood and turning into an animal. My main problem with being young and living forever would be to see everyone else die around me. It would be a lonely world for most since everyone around them would die and leave them.
This film also delivers comedic elements too attached to the horror. It doesn’t have nudity, but at the same time it doesn’t need it to be a good horror film. The gore is pretty wicked even though it is not a gore fest. Lost Boys is just all around 80′s fun and is definitely a great time. I liked the characters and thought that they came off strong along with funny. Michael and Sam seemed like real brothers to me, which definitely shows that these two were planned out well. The Frog brothers delivered the comedy and were just a blast to watch. I was also really digging the character David (played by Kiefer Sutherland) and his vampire biker friends. I liked the romance between Michael and Star too, which definitely gave this film some chemistry to work with. I loved the vampire look with the yellowish eyes and the way they could fly like in the Peter Pan story. The story by Janice Fischer and James Jeremias was absolutely incredible. I also was digging the screenplay by Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam. The direction by Joel Schumacher was genius with the visuals that he came up with. My favorite was the one where it is like the camera is hovering and moving over the clouds in the sky. It gave you that feeling that we were actually flying with these forever-young teenagers.
The acting was amazing by everyone involved and definitely impressed me. My favorites were definitely Corey Haim as Sam, Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog, Jason Patric as Michael, and of course Kiefer Sutherland as David. Another one of my favorite characters was the hippy grandfather played by Barnard Hughes. I definitely have to say that the stereo staked scene was fucking awesome! As fun as this movie was, I did have two problems with it that are very small. The first would be that the identity of the master vampire was totally predictable and the way it ended was kind of corny.
Overall, The Lost Boys is a fun and entertaining 80′s vampire flick that I definitely recommend for every fan of horror movies with comedy built into them to watch. Feldman and Haim definitely made this movie for me! I hear that the long awaited sequel to this film is coming out straight to DVD this coming July. I’m definitely relieved that they decided to go the sequel route rather than remake this film. Now, this discussion will be continued this summer in the review for Lost Boys 2: The Tribe so stay tuned.
Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.
Available from Amazon
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 7:57 am | Filed under Horror Reviews.
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