Recovered Classic: The Lost Boys


The graveyard of naff vampire flicks is littered with the corpses of countless fright night failures. Too often guilty of being hopelessly cliché-ridden and annoyingly unoriginal, when one comes along which you can really sink your teeth into, it inevitably makes a lasting impression. So when Joel Schumacher unleashed comic shocker The Lost Boys in 1987, it swooped in like a breath of (garlic-tinged) fresh air.

A project which originally had Richard Donner attached to direct (he ended up executive producing), Schumacher’s sinfully enjoyable film has since received both praise and condemnation from various quarters. Praise for demonstrating a keen grasp of vampire lore and condemnation for shooting what some consider to be a carnival sideshow ending. Whether or not the climax is a cop-out is a matter of personal opinion (there are those who think it’s inventive and exhilarating), but there can be no disputing the fact that what comes before is (brace yourselves) fang-tastic.

The story revolves around mum Dianne Wiest and her two sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim), who move to bustling beach town Santa Clara to live with Wiest’s eccentric taxidermist dad (Barnard Hughes). It’s made patently clear from the get-go that this is no ordinary place. Posters of missing people are plastered everywhere, all human life hangs out along the boardwalk, while some graffiti claiming that the town is “mass murder capital of the world” doesn’t exactly bode well for the new arrivals.

Things really start to get interesting, however, when Michael spots stunning local girl Star (Jami Gertz) at a beach concert, an encounter which leads to him falling in with a biker gang led by Kiefer Sutherland. Infatuated by the foxy Gertz (who is part of the gang), Michael accompanies them to their lair in a derelict hotel by the cliffs, unaware that he’s just become pals with a bunch of vampires and that the red stuff he’s just swigged from a bottle wasn’t wine. From there the story follows Michael’s gradual realization that he’s just one kill away from becoming a fully-fledged bloodsucker, a process which is given a comic spin by younger brother Sam, who freaks when he realizes that Patric is a creature of the night “You wait ‘til mom finds out.”

But Sam has already been tipped off that Santa Clara has a hidden secret by teenage comic store proprietors the Frog Brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), who give him vampire comics to read (referring to them as survival manuals) and warn that he should “pray you never have to call us.” Which is something he inevitably ends up doing as they frantically attempt to track down the “head vampire” whose slaughter will apparently return all half-vampires to normal, including Michael and Star.

Infused with a rich vein of spiky humour, Schumacher’s bracing hybrid of horror and suburban comedy is thrilling stuff, rife with outrageously entertaining scenes and crammed with fashions which are even more scary than Sutherland’s brood of rampant neck-noshers. A film which relies on character and mood to provide the chills rather than special effects, there are underlying themes to the story, such as the dangers of peer pressure and the price of temptation. But the essential elements of comedy and horror are always lurking, with the director’s swooping, bat-like camera ready to provide a few flourishes when the action eases off. In the fantastic Frog brothers, the film also boasts a pair of fabulously funny vampire vigilantes who might claim to be fearless, but are also prone to clinging on to each other Shaggy and Scooby style whenever peril looms. Experts on vampire slaying (no two bloodsuckers go out the same way apparently) their goofy double act comes across as prime TV spin-off fodder, although that honour went to Buffy a few years later.

Come the contentious, blood-soaked finale in Hughes’ house, there’s plenty at, erm, stake, as the holy water flies and the Frog Brothers do their stuff, with everyone’s future conveniently hanging in the balance. Yet while the final pay-off may grate with some, The Lost Boys still retains its cult appeal to this day and, despite its various minor flaws, proves to be a real screamer.

David Lichtneker

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