Day Eight: The Lost Boys

So when I was 13, I was introduced to the world of vampires through the movie The Lost Boys. Now, when I was 13, this movie may have been the coolest movie I had seen up to that time. For a boy of that age, it was oozing with coolness and just made you want to become a vampire, even if it meant dealing with longer finger nails, bad breath, and sleeping all day. At the time, it would not have changed the way my summer was passing anyway.

Rewatching the movie has not really changed anything for me. I still think it is simmering in a nice coolness broth that keeps the movie afloat and makes you forget about the absurdity of the story. Besides all the jokes that may surface about the presence of the brothers Corey, this movie cannot help itself, it is just utter coolness.

So if you followed the career of Kieffer Sutherland, you know that he has peaked in popularity two different times in his career, and this movie may have been the apex of his first brush with ultimate badass stature. The second being during his run of 24. Obviously the brothers Corey took a different career path after this movie, both in the wrong direction, but that is another article waiting to be written. One of the things that I like about vampire movies (when they are good vampire movies) is that there is no set mythology when it comes to vampires. There are some pretty standard things: going out in daylight, garlic, stakes to the heart, etc. But even those get changed from story to story (see Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series). So accepting that the mythos changes from movie to movie is a pre-requisite for enjoying a good vampire movie. The Lost Boys follows most of them and they even use them as heavy plot devices throughout the movie, and as part of the story.

I will say that I could probably watch this movie 100 times (and I probably have) and it would still be cool and not get old to me. It is really hard to pinpoint the reasoning behind the movie's draw, but I think that it has something to do with the actors/actresses that play the characters are all good. Jason Patric, Kieffer Sutherland, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Dianne West, Jamie Getz, and Edward Hermann at the time was not too large of a cast, but in retrospect turns out to be a great group of actors/actresses that keep the movie grounded.

The movie seems to use a lot of the stereotypical horror movie components: Dark lighting during situations that would most likely be well lit, the kooky older character that ends up knowing more than he lets on (grandpa), the off-balance characters that seem to know too much about the situation to keep the plot moving forward (Frog brothers), and the hot girl that lures the characters into action (Gertz). All-in-all, this movie is deeply enjoyable with a good mix of scares, humor, and connection with the characters. I highly recommend this movie.

Click here to read reviews of The Lost Boys