The Lost Boys
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Template:Infobox Film The Lost Boys is a 1987 American comedy/horror film about young Californians who must fight a gang of teenage vampires. It stars Jason Patric, Corey Haim, and Kiefer Sutherland, and co-stars Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, and Barnard Hughes. It was directed by Joel Schumacher. The film's title is derived from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.
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Plot
A divorced mother and her two teenage sons, Michael and Samuel, move to live with the mother's father in the small California town of Santa Carla (based loosely on the city of Santa Cruz, California), plagued by problems with a motorcycle gang and unexplained disappearances.
The older boy, Michael (Jason Patric), is eventually drawn into the motorcycle gang because he feels attracted to the group's girl, Star (Jami Gertz), and because he doesn't want to look less than their charismatic leader, David (Kiefer Sutherland). After a sort of informal initiation ceremony with the gang involving dangerous activities such as motorcycle racing through the fog and hanging from the underside of a rail bridge, Michael begins to hang out with them until he is made to drink blood in the guise of wine. Soon afterwards, he starts showing the symptoms of vampirism. He sleeps all day and starts hanging out with them all night, which lasts until they drive him to a real hunt and show him that he must kill in order to survive.
This makes Michael react. With the help of Star, Laddie (a vampire child), and his brother Sam who in the meantime has joined up with two inept vampire hunters (Edgar and Alan Frog), he sets out to shake off the curse by finding and killing the head vampire. This will prove more difficult than it seems, because it is not so evident who the leader is.
The movie ends with two twists: one regarding the identity of the head vampire, and the other sure to make you laugh.
Cast
- Jason Patric - Michael Emerson
- Corey Haim - Sam Emerson
- Diane Weist - Lucy Emerson
- Barnard Hughes - Grandpa
- Edward Herrmann - Max
- Kiefer Sutherland - David
- Billy Wirth - Dwayne
- Brooke McCarter - Paul
- Alex Winter - Marco
- Jami Gertz - Star
- Corey Feldman - Edgar Frog
- Jamison Newlander - Alan Frog
- Chance Michael Corbitt - Laddie Thompson
Box office and critical importance
The Lost Boys performed well at the U.S. box office, grossing over $32 million - a strong performance for an R-rated horror movie.
It won a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1987. The film was part of a postmodern trend to transplant the European folklore of vampires into the new world that included 1987's western-gothic Near Dark. Such works paved the way for other modern vampire movies and television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The movie can be seen as seminal in the modernization of the vampire myth and its adaptation to the end of the 20th century. It is probably thanks to it that movies such as the aforementioned and others, such as Blade and its sequels ever came to exist.
The Lost Boys was the first performance together of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, who thereafter became known as the two Coreys for their performance together in a range of teen movies.
The sitcom Big Wolf on Campus had Haim and Feldman appear in different episodes as themselves, but vampires, the story being that during the making of The Lost Boys, they actually became vampires.
Possibility of sequels
Joel Schumacher made several attempts at a sequel during the 1990s. At one point a possible remake by the title of Lost Girls was mooted, but it never saw the light of day. An uncredited script for Lost Boys 2 has been circulating ever since the late 1980s. It's unknown if the script was a legitimate attempt at a sequel, or who wrote it. There has been some speculation that it might have been Joss Whedon due to two interesting coincidences. First, there was a biker chick vampire by the name of Angel. In the script for the Buffy pilot, Angel was going to be a biker. Also the mayor of Santa Carla (Al U. Card) was set up as a possible villain in a third movie. This closely mirrors the way that the mayor of Sunnydale was slowly introduced as a villain in Buffy.
Music
Thomas Newman wrote the film score. The soundtrack contains a number of notable songs, including "Good Times", a duet between INXS and former Cold Chisel lead singer Jimmy Barnes which reached number 1 on the Australian charts in early 1987. This cover version of a 1960s Australian hit by the Easybeats was originally recorded to promote the Australian Made tour of Australia in early 1987, headlined by INXS and Barnes.
The soundtrack also features a cover version of The Doors' song "People are Strange" by Echo & the Bunnymen. The theme song "Cry Little Sister" was originally recorded by Gerard McMann; in 2004, the Lost Brothers recorded it as "Cry Little Sister (I Need U Now)" with the track reaching the UK top 20 and Australian top 40. "Cry Little Sister" was also covered in 2004 by Carfax Abbey on their album Second Skin.
Quotes
- Michael: Hey Grandpa, is it true that Santa Carla is the murder capital of the world?
- Grandpa: Well, let me put it this way - if all the corpses buried round here was to stand up all at once, we'd have one hell of a population problem.
- Sam: Wait, wait. You have a TV?
- Grandpa: No, I just like to read the TV guide. You read the TV guide, you don't need a TV.
- Grandpa: Michael! You know the rule about filling up the car with gas when you take it without asking!
- Sam: You're a creature of the night, Michael! A goddamn, shit-sucking vampire! You wait until mom finds out, buddy!!
- Alan: Kill your brother. You'll feel better.
- Edgar: Good night, bloodsucker!
- Sam: Death by stereo!
- Alan: Holy Shit! It's the attack of Eddie Munster! (when Laddie vamps out).
- David: My blood is in your veins.
- Michael: SO IS MINE!
- Max: We'll be a family, Lucy... your boys and my boys...
- Edgar: Oh great, the blood-sucking Brady Bunch!
- Grandpa: One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach: all the damn vampires.
Trivia
- The names of the Frog brothers, Edgar and Alan, are probably a reference to Edgar Allan Poe, the well-known writer of horror fiction.
- Billy Wirth's character of Dwayne is never mentioned anywhere in the entire movie by his character name. In other words, no one else in the movie says "Hey Dwayne!" or something like that to get his attention. Unless you knew it was Billy Wirth and looked through the credits you would have never known the name of his character.
- Brooke McCarter's character Paul is only mentioned once throughout the entire film by his character name.