Lost Boys, a horror comedy about angsty teenagers who happen to be vampires.
Lost Boys is a movie about a vampire triangle romance, brotherhood, and teenage angst.
This was my first time watching the 1987 cult classic Lost Boys and I must say I’m ashamed I waited for so long. From the few person-to-person reviews I’d heard of it, I’d been told it was hokey and had a thin layer separating it from those sparkly vampires who shall not be named.
While there were some campy moments, this movie kept the action rolling and was wildly entertaining. The quirky humor and of course, Corey Feldman, made this feel like a vampire Goonies, another solid-gold classic. While it’s not as light-hearted nor for the same intended audience (I’d say this is well placed at PG-13), it’s definitely in the comedy category with some elements of horror.
About the Film
The story starts off at the flashy carnival pier of Santa Carla, a fictional beach-side California town. The movie was filmed in Santa Cruz, so it never felt like it was filmed in a studio, with the exception of the scenes filmed in the vampire layer, though there was a sort of Labyrinth-mysticism about those scenes, which I quite enjoyed. We meet the boys, who look to be around 23, but I believe are supposed to be teens, who are perusing people riding a carousel. With mischievous smiles on their faces, the boys hone in on one young lady. A security guard appears, asking the boys to stay off the pier. They leave without causing any trouble, but it didn’t take a crystal ball to predict that the security guy’s time on this earth was ticking down.
Sure enough, en route to his vehicle in the empty, dark parking lot, the security guard meets his end. (This really isn’t a spoiler).
Cue the intro music by Jim Morrison and the Doors, “When You’re Strange,” and the montage of the weird and wild of the setting emerges, showing a quite a colorful and wide range of strange. Throughout this montage, we see a number of missing person fliers, which reminded me of the far more chilling intro of Black Phone, which I just watched two nights before. Intermixed within the interlude, we meet the young family moving into Santa Carla from Phoenix, a mom and her two teen boys.
And that’s where the story gets rolling.
Highlights
One of my favorite parts about this movie was how they depicted the flight of the vampires; we never (slight spoiler) actually see the vampires flying, but we see it from their perspective, which made me think of the special effects in Disney’s Hocus Pocus, where we see the witches approaching a house from their eyes as they soar in on their brooms. I always like when we don’t “see” everything; it allows our imaginations to take flight, (does that count as a pun?), heightening our personal investment in what we’re watching or reading.
I also really enjoyed the overall lack of special effects for similar reasons. The makeup done and the haunting effects of the contacts the actors wore did the job of establishing that these vampires wouldn’t think twice about taking a bite out of you.
The devil-may-care attitudes of the vampires did harken me back to the lost boys from Peter Pan who would never, never grow old and who frolicked about their Neverland without worry, care or consequence. (Until Rufio… my heart still cries for Rufio). And of course, I’m sure that was the intended effect. (And yes, I do know that Rufio’s character in Hook came after Lost Boys.)
Can’t talk about this movie without mentioning Kiefer Sutherland… he looked SO much like his father, the incredible Donald Sutherland throughout this film, which of course makes sense, but I’ve seen many more recent Kiefer Sutherland films and hadn’t made those connections as quickly, but it was especially when he was whispering Michael’s name – it felt like President Snow was lurking in the shadows.
While there were a few campy moments and I had a hard time with the recklessness of the “vampire hunters,” although as someone who works with that age group, it did make a lot of sense and those connections made it all the more funny. There was a scene that made me cry from laughing so hard as I could just see some of the teens I know partaking in similar vampire-hunting strategies. I also loved how in the heart of the vampire lair, a GIANT photo of Jim Morrison hung from the wall, found this to be a nice homage to the opening and closing songs of the movie. I also really appreciated that Edgar and Allan were brothers – pretty sure those were also homages to Edgar Allan Poe.
On a jump-scare scale, I’d say there were a couple of edge-of-your seat moments, but nothing too wild. There was one scene where a person shows their face as a vampire, which was unexpected, but resulted with my husband and I laughing about how that was in fact the scariest part of the movie.
The eccentric, taxidermist grandad was my favorite character and the last line in the movie was fantastic.
I highly recommend this movie if you’re looking for a little spooky with a lot of laughs. Even though it’s over thirty years old, this movie absolutely holds its own! As of the posting of this blog, Lost Boys is currently streaming on HBO.
Have you seen Lost Boys? What were some of your favorite scenes or characters? Let me know in the comments below! If you liked this post, check out my review on Cronos, which is a fairly different take on the curse of the undead.
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