It’s no secret that Hollywood loves its vampires. From “Nosferatu” to “Interview with the Vampire” to the “Twilight” franchise, the film industry is ridden with different bloodsuckers from every era. I consider myself a connoisseur of such movies as a kid who was always fascinated by vampiric folklore—but one of these iconic movies slipped past me until this week.
Admittedly, this film only came to my attention because of all the press the new musical adaptation has been getting. I saw a few clips and wanted to give the source material a shot to gauge whether or not it would be worth it to try to see the new musical. “The Lost Boys,” directed in 1987 by Joel Schumacher, centers around a coven of vamps in California. When teen brothers Michael and Sam move into an unnamed coastal town, they fall in with the wrong crowd in every sense of the word.
“The Lost Boys” has an interesting mix of themes. It consistently toes the line between drama and comedy, as many other 80s films do. While there’s a strangely sincere (if poorly executed) love story mixed up in the vampire drama of it all, the mother of the two teens is almost cartoonish in her portrayal of a protective single mother. The two professional vampire hunters in town also happen to be about 14 and still speak as low as they can… for some reason. While some beats feel genuinely scary, others make the film feel strikingly similar to family-friendly supernatural classics like “Hocus Pocus.”
Even so, there is something inherently interesting about “The Lost Boys.” For one, it seemed clear to me how this portrayal of vampires probably inspires the vampires that came after. It’s unserious in all the ways that movies like “Twilight” are, but at the same time, it uses inspiration from vampire folklore that I’ve almost never seen. For one, these vamps sleep upside down in a large cave, translating the vampire’s connection to bats in an incredibly literal way.
While there are definitely a slew of pacing issues and the big twist in the third act felt a little out-of-the-blue, there are still a lot of elements I appreciated about this film. For one, Kiefer Sutherland’s character in particular—David, the head honcho of the goth vampire gang—managed to transcend the copious prosthetic work as the clear stand out performance. He is simultaneously menacing and enticing, scary in a way that makes us lean in closer and want to know more.
That’s the main draw of this film, in my personal opinion. The way the audience is always on the outside, only learning bits and pieces of information at a time, makes it inherently interesting to watch. Michael and Sam provide the perfect storytelling vehicles for us to slowly start to understand who and what the Lost Boys are, and once they begin to unravel the mysteries their small town is concealing, they get swept up in an underworld they never anticipated.
To put it simply, this is a wild ride. I can understand why it’s dubbed a cult classic—it’s a lovable mess, but it’s still worth the watch—and, from what I’ve heard, worth the Broadway ticket price too.
