The Lost Boys (1987)

Tagline: ‘Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire’
UK Running Time: 97 Minutes
Film Quality: 4.5/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 3.5/5

Introduction

Until the 1980s vampires had largely been monsters from a bygone age, Dracula or Nosferatu types, walking about in creaky old castles and springing out of coffins just as the rest of us are settling down for our cocoa and biscuits. Hammer did a little more to make them sexy in the swinging 60s and whatever the hell the 70s was, so it was a logical jump that the stylised 80s would discard them like an old sock unless they could somehow make them cool. David Bowie managed it to a certain extent in the slightly weird ‘The Hunger’, and ‘Fright Night’ made an admirable effort despite our ‘cool’ vampire spending most of the film wearing a jumper, it wasn’t until 1987 when Joel Schumacher absolutely nailed it with ‘The Lost Boys’.

In a nutshell

When Lucy ups sticks with her two teenage boys, Michael and Sam, to live with her Dad after a divorce they have no idea that they’re moving to the self-proclaimed ‘Murder Capital of the World’! That could be down to some bad elements, or it could be that it’s crawling with vampires eager to get their daily dose of rouge. Let’s just hope that Michael and Sam can stay out of trouble…

What’s good about it?

If they were aiming to make vampires cool then they succeeded (left). Schumacher crowbars in enough cool to fill two entire features with enough left over to put in the freezer and defrost in 1990 to turn into ‘Flatliners’. It’s dripping with style, quotable dialogue, an incredible soundtrack and characters that you would give your left stone to have been in real life. It captures the 80s as well as any John Hughes movie with its teenage angst, terrible fashions and ability to make situations relatable to us despite its subject matter.

It has a cast to die for, one of the best of any 80s movies regardless of genre with the pick of the bunch undoubtedly Kiefer Sutherland. It wasn’t his first feature, we’d seen him as the leader of a bad bunch before in ‘Stand By Me’ but he’s a revelation in this film. He oozes charm and a threatening calm, like a cult leader which I suppose he is. The way he encourages Michael to drink the blood is brilliant, using his vampiric powers of suggestion and illusion to make him do it willingly rather than by force, a scene which sums up his character wonderfully. We also have The Two Coreys on screen together for the first time, a great turn by the late Barnard Hughes as ‘Gramps’ and Jami Gertz playing the vulnerable yet seductive Star, a character originally written as male.

We’re not talking about a hardcore horror film here but there are some great little set piece vignettes towards the end including the infamous ‘Death by Stereo’ scene, the holy water bath and the battle between Michael and David. There are some nice special effects going on here and a surprising exploding head that, whilst not in the same league as ‘Scanners’ or ‘Dawn of the Dead’ is a welcome addition to a 15 rated horror movie! There’s also the brilliant vampires vs Surf Nazis scuffle which is less a battle than a massacre and shot with a scattergun approach that befits the MTV generation style of much of the film.

Having said that, what Schumacher brings to the film is a great sense of dark style and artistic brilliance. I love the shot of the wave crashing in front of the giant Blood Moon, the lighthouse beam shooting up over the top of the cliff face from below as the bikers speed towards the edge and the reverse shot out of the cave as the vampires prepare to go on another killing spree. It’s a very well made film with the art direction bringing a lot of the 80s excess, fashions and sensibilities into the context of a horror film without making it look too much like a movie for teenyboppers. In fact it’s one of those crossover films that’s managed to appeal to teens and genre fans alike.

What about the bad?

Well, it’s not very scary is it and you could accuse the film of adopting a style over substance attitude. At the end of the day this is a teen horror film where most of the central characters, at least the ones we’re invited to identify with are teenagers who have teenage problems that adults can’t solve. The issue of a lack of scares doesn’t bother me too much as it’s so bloody entertaining but it was one of the films to usher in a brand of horror designed to appeal to a younger audience which ultimately brought us ‘Twilight’ and I’m not sure I can forgive that!

With so much time and effort invested in the teenage characters, very little colour is given to the adults, with the exception of ‘Grandpa’. Lucy is incredibly dull, which is possibly the point as she is such an easy target for Max…watching it back you can see his grin when he first sets eyes on her (left), mistaken for an admiration of kindness on first viewing but takes on different connotations second time around.

Not enough is made of the vampires for me with no context as to why they’re in Santa Carla, who they are and vampire lore is played with to come extent. How are the vampires able to enter the building in the climax when they haven’t been invited? Why does garlic not work? Does nobody think of making a cross? And why do we not see Star change into a vampire? She is the only female member of the vampire gang and my own curiosity would have liked to have seen her ‘vamp out’!

Any themes?

The title is clearly a reference to Peter Pan. I like the idea that somebody has taken a look at Peter Pan’s character and realised that he comes out at night, never gets old, he can fly…what if he were a vampire? It’s a brilliant concept and the idea of living forever coming at a price which ultimately results in a complete lack of humanity (how do we know that David wasn’t like Michael and Star once, afraid and fighting the ‘turn’?) due to having to ‘feed’.

‘Youth is wasted on the young’ is a popular saying but you can never truly stay eternally young because life’s experiences are what make you ‘old’. David and his gang may have been seduced by the thought of eternal youth but they are outcasts. They can never be free from the shackles of what they are and what they’ve done so, like Peter Pan, the boys who never grew up can never enjoy their eternal youth but feed off the youth of others.

Release History

Nice and straightforward with no censorship issues it was a modest box office success but really took off on home video with plenty of VHS, DVD and Blu-ray releases brimming with special features.

Cultural Impact

It’s become a monster of a cult hit, Quentin Tarantino even name checked it in his blistering debut ‘Reservoir Dogs’. It paved the way for vampires to be cool and was directly responsible (for better or for worse) for teenage hits ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, ‘Angel’ and subsequently ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and the absolutely terrible ‘Twilight’ films. It always bothers me when people try and compare ‘The Lost Boys’ with ‘Twilight’. It’s like comparing the highest quality Belgian chocolate with a Twix, yes the ingredients are the same but one is mass produced for a quick snack and the other is for those who know the difference!

Final Thoughts

Not many films get that balance between mass appeal and cult phenomena and it’s almost always an accident but ‘The Lost Boys’ gets so much right that it deserves its place for both sets of fans. It’s effortlessly cool, despite being of its time, with enough nods to both the horror and teenage comedy genres that it works perfectly on both levels. It’s one of those films that you accidentally switch on to when you’re ready for bed, doing a bit of channel hopping, intending to watch another five minutes but end up watching the whole thing. Joel Schumacher, I salute you sir!

Memorable quotes

Grandpa: “One of the things about Santa I just couldn’t stomach……..all the damn vampires!”

David: “They’re only noodles Michael.”

Edgar: “Just scoping your civilian Wardrobe.”
Sam: “Pretty cool huh.”
Alan: “For a fashion victim.”

Grandpa: “Let me put it this way…if all the corpses buried around here were all to stand up at once, well, we’d have one hell of a population problem.”

Edgar: “It’s not our fault, they pulled a mind scrambler on us…they opened their eyes and talked.”

Sam: “Death by stereo!”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

“Fright Night’, ‘Near Dark’, ‘An American Werewolf in London’, ‘Tremors’