I readily admit it: Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys is not really a Halloween movie. Sure it deals with vampires... but to me it feels like more like a summer movie version of a Halloween flick.
That being said, there is some really fun stuff in this movie. And by fun, I mean scary. Take the opening for example: from our very first glimpse at Kiefer Sutherland we realize the dude's not right. Granted, that's the impression we always got when we saw him in the 80s and 90s... and, well, ever since but he is particularly vicious-looking here. He intentionally picks a fight with another nasty looking guy on the town's boardwalk and is stopped by a portly security guard who seems to have Sutherland's number.
Wrong.
At that point we are introduced to post-Lucas Corey Haim, a debuting Jason Patric and a post-first Oscar Dianne Wiest: a single-parent family in search of a better life so they turn to sunny beachside community Santa Carla where they bunk with Wiest's eccentric father (Barnard Hughes).
Beach during the day and party on the boardwalk at night... Jason Patric may have found his paradise. Hell, his first rock concert on the beach includes a ridiculously buff guy with a slicked-back ponytail playing the saxophone! It's every 80s-era rebel's dream, right?
Wrong again.
Soon Patric and Haim discover that all is not as it seems in the city of Santa Carla. For Kiefer Sutherland and his band of merry blood-suckers (which includes "Bill S. Preston, Esquire" of Bill and Ted fame) draw a bead on Patric and are determined to initiate him.
The scariest stuff to me is the dilemma these young brothers are faced with: they've been forced to move to a town where there are some really bad things going down and none of the adults in town believe them (despite the insane amount of missing people in their small town). What do you do? Well, you have to take it upon yourself to fight back of course! And who you gonna call?
The Frogg Brothers (Corey Feldman and some other dude).
In true 80s fashion, the final battle is epic... and full of booby traps. A highly entertaining ending to a fun vampire romp.
One of the final lines in TLB comes from grandpa- a man who just didn't seem to have all his marbles in place. After he lends an unexpected hand, he momentarily leaves us wondering who the hell he really is... until he blankly says this:
"One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach... all the damn vampires."
It makes you want to simultaneously laugh and beat your head against the wall. But it's all good fun... so put yourself in a blood sucking mood and enjoy some vampires- 80s style.
xxxx,
~The Hootenanny
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