Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #46: The Lost Boys (1987).

 

Brothers Sam (Corey Haim) and Michael (Jason Patric) have just moved to Santa Carla, California with their newly-divorced mum Lucy (Dianne Wiest), to live with her friendly wackjob father (Barnard Hughes). They're classic, corn-fed, all-American boys who live for comics and nights out at the funfair. But beneath the wholesome veneer of their new home stirs an underbelly of shady activity. It's also home to a band of vampires, led by David (Kiefer Sutherland), who live in every way like rock stars: they ride motorcycles, drink like fish and even have a mural of Jim Morrison as their cave's centrepiece. When Michael inadvertently falls in with them after falling madly in love with the gang's human sweetheart Star (Jami Gertz), their wicked spell slowly falls over him, there and at home. Mum understandably will not approve, especially when it interferes with her burgeoning relationship with rental store proprietor Max (Edward Herrmann). Now Sam must figure out what's come over his big brother and how to stop it, with the help of militaristic brothers Edgar and Allan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander).

Director Joel Schumacher may be infamous now as the guy who put nipples on Batman and Robin's outfits in 1997 (and I'll pretend that whole movie never happened, for that matter), but this 1987 cult horror comedy delight proves he's really not at all that bad. The Lost Boys is infused throughout with sincere charm, knowing genre humour, suitably Gothic visuals and soundtrack choices, confidently staged and paced action scenes and most importantly for a horror flick, loads of blood and gore. Schumacher uses the hip screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias to offer a vampire flick that somehow achieves the balancing act of being a loving homage to classic vampire films and stories while inverting their themes and tropes into a more postmodern variation. And despite some obvious (but unavoidable) signs of its era (e.g. vinyl records and rotary phones), its setting still feels surprisingly contemporary.

The cast all have terrific fun in their roles also, particularly Feldman and Newlander who even make these very gung-ho teenage occult hunters feel trustworthy and sympathetic (I know I'd be sceptical about enlisting help from such young “experts”), and Michael Chapman's cinematography enhances the whole movie's succulent glam-rock feel. The Lost Boys is one supernatural flick very much worth sinking your teeth into.