The Lost Boys [M]

When Sam and his older brother Michael move to their grandfather’s place in a small coastal town, it seems that they’re going to fit in fine with the boardwalk nightlight, comic book stores, video shops, and everything. But soon they discover that the town is peopled with vampires and Michael, having been peer-tricked into drinking blood, starts to become one of them. It falls to Sam and his friends to save Michael before his first kill by ridding the town of the head vampire. The only problem is who is it? 

This is one of those cult horror movies that I know a lot of people absolutely love, but for me (maybe because I wasn’t around when it first came out) The Lost Boys was just a very dated and faded vampire movie that just hasn’t stood the test of time. Between characters being underdeveloped and large plot points suddenly being thrown at you, I couldn’t bring myself to like much about this movie. Actually that’s a lie, I did laugh a bit at the dumb acting and 80s fashions. 

When Sam and his older brother Michael move to their grandfather’s place in a small coastal town, it seems that they’re going to fit in fine with the boardwalk nightlight, comic book stores, video shops, and everything. But soon they discover that the town is peopled with vampires and Michael, having been peer-tricked into drinking blood, starts to become one of them. It falls to Sam and his friends to save Michael before his first kill by ridding the town of the head vampire. The only problem is who is it? 

Because it is a vampire movie, I can see where the cult appeal comes in. There is an evident niche market for films like this and there are audiences out there who find things in these movies that appeal to them. I am just not one of these people. The story itself is pretty pathetic: kids move to a town riddled with vampires, the older, angsty sibling gets infected, and because there is no help from the mother, the youngest son has to save the family. It works fine, but it is a little predictable and very uninteresting in parts. I wouldn’t have minded this so much if the performances drew my attention away from it, but unfortunately everyone (aside from the trio of young heroes really) just gives these dumb and wooden performances that can’t be emotionally latched onto. I couldn’t really bring myself to like anyone in this flick. 

The special effects of the vampires in their vampiric state were ok but nothing special, it was slightly fascinating that the lead group of night crawlers were a motorcycle gang of punks all clad in 80s leather outfits with dangling earring in one ear and stuff (a sort of leather clad new-romantic type look blended with punk), and I do have to give credit where credit is due to the trio of young heroes because they came into their own after beginning with a bit of a shaky start. A predictable, stupid sort of humour was the ending note and the ‘twist’ at the end was something that can pretty much be seen coming so that’s a bit of a downer. 

Starring Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Weist, Barard Hughs, Edward Hermann, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander, Brooke McCarter, Billy Wirth, and Alex Winter, The Lost Boys is a pretty hit and miss horror flick. The more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to see it as a sort of parody, a send-up of the vampire subgenre that just didn’t really reach its aim. Filled with action, gore, drama, romance, teenage angst, and comedy, it’s a movie that I’m happy to say that I’ve seen, but not one that I would come back to.