See, now you are getting it! We are building a community here, all of us together, and everyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome to turn up and hang out, talk about movies, debate, be wrong about box office predictions, and have a good natured argument about the state of modern entertainment in general. Everyone is also welcome to contribute, and a few of you have. Today, that exalted club of contributors has a new inductee – Mhatt – one of your very own, an Outposter, who wants to talk to you about The Lost Boys.
Do you have something you want to share with your fellow Outposters? Contribution brings eternal gratitude, the adoration of your peers, and makes you irresistible to the opposite sex. If you want to be neck deep in sexy-fun times, send your contribution to us at [email protected].
Now here is Mhatt.
The Lost Boys
Hello Every Body. One of my goals for 2023 is constructively write more often, so here we go. Welcome to my resolution. Today’s topic is 1987’s The Lost Boys, which at the time was surprisingly fresh feeling entry into the well worn vampire genre.
I first saw this movie when I was a kid and was struck by the overall cool, sexy, genuinely scary vibe director Joel Schumacher (8MM, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill) delivered. It is produced by the legendary Richard Donner, who was originally set to fill the directors chair. He left due to production delays. This allowed him to make another 80’s classic, and a movie I still haven’t seen, Lethal Weapon.
So, first a bit of background. The Lost Boys takes place in the fictional town of Santa Carla, California where we are introduced to family of three, seemingly without a last name, relocating after a divorce.
The mother, Lucy, is played by Dianne Wiest who had won two Oscars at this point. She has brought her two boys with her. Mike is Jason Patric, young and upcoming hunk of broodiness. His younger brother, Sam, is Corey, #1 or #2 depending on your preference I guess, Haim. They are going to live with their eccentric Grandpa, played by journeyman actor Barnard Hughes. He has many quirks, including a penchant for amateur taxidermy, a non gift which however shares quite freely.
Cautionary graffiti and a myriad missing posters seem contradictory to the easy daytime vibe of the vibrant tight-knit coastal town. Drawn by the allure of the carnival atmosphere of the boardwalk the three outsiders begin to explore their new surroundings.
Mike grows eyes for the beautiful, but obviously troubled, Star (Jami Gertz – Twister, The Neighbors), while Sam finds solace amongst comic book enthusiasts and Mom tries to lock down a job. This puts her into the company of Max (Edward Herrman – Gilmore Girls) a local business proprietor and eventual love interest.
This sequence sets up the rest of the movie. We meet the good – Edgar (Corey Feldman. The Goonies, Stand By Me) and Alan (Jamison Newlander, who would appear in an episode of The Two Coreys where they pitch a sequel to The Lost Boys) aka the Frog Brothers. They are also self-avowed Vampire slayers.
We also meet the bad – the vampire gang. They are led by David, played by an almost too successfully chilling Kiefer Sutherland (Young Guns, 24) and his minions include Alex “Alexander” Winter (Bill and Ted), and couple other big haired expendables.
This leads to the ugly, in the form of an impressive amount of creatively envisioned gore.
Dicks are measured, mostly figuratively, and conflict begins as Michael tries to run with the bad boys and ends up a lot deeper in than Max probably got in his Mom. Don’t worry, there is plenty other stake wettening to behold once Sam realizes what is happening to his brother.
Sam and the Frog brothers devise a clever plan to stalk, then lure the vampire gang to Grandpa’s house and usher them out of their immortal coil. The movie does dabble in some vampire lore as it applies to movies – blood thirst, aversions to garlic, holy water, stakes through the heart and being invited in – they are not hard rules, as we realize too late. This succeeds in making the movie have a bit of a twist ending, as well as being a soft core 80s porn-rock video. I’ll stop short of spoilers.
Finding Neverland
As the title suggests, there are parallels between Peter Pan if not a straight-up reimagining, homage, and tip o’ the Alpine hat. There is flying, pirate-style hideouts, as well as themes of immortality, eternal youth and the inherent desire to find a place to belong.
If that’s seems a bit incidental, there’s the awesome dog character Nanook (Nana) played by a Malamute who’s loyalty to Sam comes in so clutch it’s (now) considered (by me) to be one the most clutch animus et machina scenes in movie history.
The Lost Boys was one of the first soundtracks I can remember that elevated the film into an experience, by adding some crucial yet intangible dimension to the story. Call it atmosphere, call it mood, I call it motherfucking evocative of a time and place I’ve never been. This song in particular – Cry Little Sister:
This was written specifically for the movie by Mike Maineri (a vibraphonist and solid studio musician) and Gerard McMahon (from lots of TV and movie soundtracks). It drifts smoothly through the auricles, cueing the other senses to the smell of sea salt, the feel of warm sand, and the taste of carnival food as a seductive precursor to a lump of dread about to take hold in our tourist stomachs.
The Lost Boys endures for a couple reasons. First it didn’t get washed out by endless crappy sequels. It only had one, years later, that went straight to video. Remember how easy it used to be to spot crap? That only reunited a few of the more desperate cast members. I’ll let you find out which ones.
Secondly, the production value is top notch. No shot is wasted in the service of the story, no element is held above another in an effort to distract from the story. Instead, The Lost Boys is a cohesive film from start to finish, aided by some stylistic but effective direction.
Flying cameras, boys dropping into fog from train bridges, and graphic individual death sequences all look cool. There is a strong contribution from three time Oscar winning costume designer Ve Neill (Beetlejuice and star of SyFy’s awesome Face/Off). She worked closely with the director and the writers, Jan Fischer, James Jeremias and Jeffry Boam to achieve a subtle, beautiful and authentically menacing look.
The legacy of this movie is such that, to this day, it kicks off a summer movie series each year in Santa Cruz which provided most of the movie’s exteriors. It also provided some inspiration for the dubious graffitied claim “Murder Capital of the World” that greets our characters on the back of the welcoming billboard. The location was inspired by real life, as all great art is, as it seems there were a couple of very successful serial killers running rampant in the 1970’s. Fuck, California is a weird place.
If you haven’t seen it, it is currently sitting at a 7.2 on IMDB if that matters. Watch it soon. If you have already seen it and it’s been a few decades, watch it again. You won’t regret it.
Thank you for welcoming me into your brains.
Check back every day for new content at Last Movie Outpost.
To like us on Facebook Click Here
To follow us on Twitter Click Here
See our YouTube channel Click Here
The post Retro Review: THE LOST BOYS appeared first on The Last Movie Outpost.
