The Lost Boys...1987...97 minutes...R...starring Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Keifer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, and Corey Feldman...written by Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam...directed by Joel Schumacher
Meet Michael and Sam, two displaced brothers who have relocated to Santa Carla with their mom and have moved in with Grandpa. It's bad enough trying to settle in to a new home in the best of circumstances; it's much worse when your new town is reputedly the murder capital of the world. It's also much worse when one of the most attractive girls in town hangs with a gang of biker punks...and they all turn out to be vampires. It's not long before Michael comes down with a case of semi-vampirism, leaving Sam to recruit two local teens...the Fearless Frog Brothers...to help fight off Michael's new friends, and maybe even Michael himself.
"The Lost Boys" is a seminal 80s vampire movie, still eminently quotable to this day. It's got a notable cast, quirky dialogue, wonderful characters, and enough gloss to shine the grubbiest of floors. (Well, it's Joel Schumacher, what did you expect?) Unlike a lot of Dracula movies and various 70s films with vampires, this movie is where we really start seeing younger, sexier bloodsucking fiends. Tuxedos and opera coats are traded in for leather jackets and trenchcoats, while the vampire hunters aren't doctors or scientists but offbeat comic geeks instead. Make no mistake, if you're wondering how we got to vampire romance novels saturating the book market and shows like "True Blood" holding popular shares of ratings, movies like "The Lost Boys" are at the heart of it...(yes, Anne Rice gets her share of the blame/glory as well, but I'm discussing movies here.)
While there's a good share of gore and goo (vampires don't die neatly in this movie), there's not a whole lot of actual scares in this movie...it's vampire heavy but horror light, if you will. I think this also has much tom do with the appeal of this movie; it's a vampire movie for people wouldn't normally watch horror.
Still, as I've said before, something entertaining is worth its weight in appeal. I give this one 4 holy water squirt-guns out of 5.
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