THE LOST BOYS (1987)

DIRECTED by Joel Schumacher 

SCREENPLAY by James Jeremias & Jeffrey Boam from a story by Janice Fischer & James Jeremias

STARRING  - Jason Patric as Michael Emerson, Corey Haim as Sam Emerson, Dianne Weist as Lucy Emerson, Barnard Hughes as Grandpa, Edward Herrmann as Max, Kiefer Sutherland as David, Jami Gertz as Star, Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog, Jamison Newlander as Alan Frog, Brooke McCarter as Paul, Billy Wirth as Dwayne, Alex Winter as Marko, Chance Michael Corbitt as Laddie, Tim Cappello as Saxophone man.

PLOT - Lucy Emerson - a recently divorced mother and her two teenage sons - Michael and Sam - relocate to the coastal town of Santa Carla, California (apparently the murder capital of the world) to live with Lucy's elderly father.

Michael and Sam are soon drawn into the beach town's nightlife with it's gaudy piers and fairgrounds. Michael becomes attracted to a beautiful girl named Star. Unfortunately Star appears to be involved with a young thug called David who is the leader of a gang of bikers.

David and his gang terrorise the town at night, for they harbour a deadly secret...they are really vampires ! They prey on the blood of drunken party goers and derelicts who are in plentiful supply in the lively town. Michael begins to be drawn into the sect of vampires and soon begins to become one of them.

Can Michael's younger brother Sam (with the help of two incompetent teenage vigilante vampire hunters) save his brother's soul before its too late ?...

DIALOUGE  - Sam - "My own brother...a goddamn shit sucking vampire ! Oh...you wait till Mom finds out Buddy !"

Grandpa - "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach...all the damn vampires!"

PERFORMANCES  - The Lost Boys features a strong ensemble cast that are about as 80's as it gets. Seriously - this film just oozes 80'sness. It's not just the fact that many of the cast were big names in the 80's (Sutherland, Feldman and Haim in particular), its also the film's whole asthetic - from the neon lit town of Santa Carla to the mullet hairstyled vampires (who all look like they should be members of White Snake) to the awful outfits that some of the cast (Haim in particular) are forced to wear. That being said though it all adds to the film's considerable charm.

The two central characters - Patric as troubled teen Michael, and Haim as his cocky little brother - Sam work very well together and although they look absolutely nothing alike they do manage to convey a convincing brotherly relationship. They bicker, they squabble, Sam frequently runs his brother down for being self consciously "cool" but you can tell the two characters genuinely care about ( and look out for ) each other.

Patric is also very good at putting over Michael's growing trauma at slowly becoming a vampire - he's sweaty and fevered looking at points, like a junky going cold turkey or like a man with a permanent hangover. Of course, the whole reason Michael is even in this situation is because he wants to get with Star (Jami Gertz) and who can blame him really ? I mean...just LOOK at her...

I had a serious crush on Jami Gertz in this film back when I first saw it as a teenager,  I can well understand why Michael becomes a victim of his own hormones. Star is basically a "honey trap" who draws Michael into the vampire gang's orbit. You're never quite sure of her motivation throughout most of the film - is she evil or is she just as much a victim as Michael is ? Turns out she's one of the good guys by the end of the film, but you do find yourself wondering about her at points. She's an interesting character.

Michael then spends much of the film mopeing about looking moody, whilst worrying his long suffering mum Lucy (a very homely performance from Dianne Weist). At this point it becomes Sam's job to try and save his elder brother. 

Corey Haim is great as Sam - he's a cocky teenage smart arse who gets all the best lines but the character also has a convincing vulnerability to him as well. He's even better when he teams up with the Frog brothers - Edgar (Feldman) and Alan (Newlander) - two local teenagers whose permanently stoned parents run the local comic book store whilst thier two boys set themselves up as freelance (amateur) vampire hunters.

The Frog brothers are a great creation. They both speak in these gruff "action hero" type voices (even though the pair of them are barely out of puberty and probably aren't even shaving yet). They dress like Rambo's little brothers and act like they know absolutely EVERYTHING there is to know about vampires (they get most of thier knowledge from  old horror comics and movies). Despite all thier bluster they still absolutely shit themselves when they eventually come up against some real vampires and thier ineptitude shows them up for the total amateurs they really are. Still, the boys come good in the end and (eventually) manage to take out a couple of vampires. So all's well that ends well.

The big breakout star of the Lost Boys was - of course - Kiefer Sutherland as the vampire gang's leader David. This film literally made him a star and served to move him out of his father Donald's shadow to become a respected actor in his own right. It's easy to see why on the strength of this role alone. He just fits the part perfectly - he's dangerous, predatory and (badly dated mullet aside) cool. The way he's constantly needling Michael - pushing him to take the next step towards full blown vampirism is like a cat toying with a helpless mouse before it rips its guts open with its claws. He's completely 100 percent in charge and OWNS both the gang and the screen.

When I was a teenager (long long ago) I had a pair of friends who actually wanted to BE David. They dressed like him and constantly quoted his lines to one another ("Maggots Michael... you're eating Maggots" doesn't have QUITE the same ring to it when delivered in a Mansfield accent ). I'm guessing that there where quite a few other similarly deluded teenage boys around at the time. Proof positive of Sutherland/David's iconic status.

For all David's bluster he didn't actually turn out to be the REAL head vampire though, that position falls to Max (Edward Herrmann). Max at first comes over as a slightly bumbling yuppie video store owner (usually wearing a set of obligatory garish "mid-life crisis" 80's shirts). Max starts dating Lucy and seems like a thoroughly decent sort of bloke until - in the final scene - he's revealed to be the head vampire at which point he goes full-on Christopher Lee. He makes a great vampire but he's very easily despatched courtesy of Grandpa (the brilliant Barnard Hughes) and his pickup truck that just happens to be filled with conveniently placed sharpened logs. It doesn't end well for Max and leads to one of the greatest closing lines/punchlines in horror film history.

SFX - There's some great makeup work in this film. The vampires all have a certain look when they're in thier true form.  It's mainly down to those lumpy looking foreheads paired with the long fangs that gives them a sort of bat-like look.

As with other aspects of this movie, this "look" proved to be massively influential. From this point on, many other vampire films and TV shows adopted this basic design - most notedly the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

VIOLENCE  - There are some great moments here. 

The scene where the vampires attack a group of surf punks who are partying around a campfire to Run DMC and Aerosmith's Walk This Way always stood out to me as a great scene when I was younger. It still holds up well today - especially the bit where David bites into the skinhead's skull like he's chomping down on a watermelon. Great stuff.

There are also some awesome vampire deaths, including the staking of Marko as he slumbers upside down like a bat in the gang's cave hideout...

Another vampire gets pushed into a bathtub full of holy water and instantly melts/rots into a steaming skeleton...

And perhaps best (and most legendary of all)... DEATH BY STEREO !!!!!

Interestingly enough, when David is finally killed (Michael impales him on a handy pair of antlers) he doesn't explode or melt like the other vampires do - he just dies quietly with a peaceful expression on his face.

Finally we get Max's unfortunate encounter with Grandpa's truck.

RATING - The Lost Boys is undoubtedly a classic of its kind. It's true that some parts of it have aged better than others but on the whole it still holds up well 36 years later. A teen horror triumph and an iconic film for both my generation and vampire cinema in general. 

5 cheesy Saxophone playing muscle men out of 5.

ART -

Below - we have the fairly generic looking cover to the official novelisation of the Lost Boys (remember when nearly every film that came out had a book to go with it ? Funnily enough a large proportion of them always seemed to be written by Craig Shaw Gardner. Wonder what he's up to these days...).

Below - The cover to the soundtrack album. When I was a teenager, lots (and I mean LOTS) of my friends all seemed to own this album on either vinyl or cassette. Another example of just how massive this film was back in the day.