35 Years Anniversary Review Of The Lost Boys

I still remember my earliest vampire memory from the 80´s. I was 10 years old in 1988, and one of our neighbor families known as The Ostwalds had a VHS copy of the 1986 horror film known as Vamp. It was on a beautiful VHS shelf in their living room, where i saw the VHS cover of Vamp, with a beautiful picture of actor / singer Grace Jones. I actually did not read about the plot, since i was told by The Ostwald´s that it is a vampire film, and that´s all i needed to know. My dad borrowed the film for a few days, and it was quite an unusual film experience. Vamp turned out to be a very odd vampire film from director Richard Wenk ( who have written a lot of scripts for big films such as The Expendables 2 and The Equalizer ). The story surrounds two college students known as Keith ( Chris Makepeace ) and AJ ( Robert Rusler ). They want to hire a stripper to buy their way into campus fraternity. They borrow a caddilac from a student called Duncan ( Gedde Watanabe ), who insists with coming with them to search for strip clubs. They locate especially one strip club, where they encounter the surreally artistic stripper, Katrina ( Grace Jones ). What seems to be just a visit to a strip club, will turn into a nightmare. Vamp is a cheesy fun vampire fun, that might be one of the strangest horror film that includes a strip club and odd characters. Definetely worth checking out if you enjoy vampire films, especially the Blu Ray release from Arrown Video. Let´s move forward to 1989 when i was 11 years old, and my school friend Tom ( who was a big Mötley Crue fan at that time, especially with the Dr. Feelgood album ) showed me the VHS cover of The Lost Boys. His parents have rented the film and he was so excited to check this film out. The cover looked so cool, and i did get to see the film. The Lost Boys turned out to be a blast, with so many great characters and had a fun approach on the teen movies of the 80´s. It even included one of the greatest saxophone solo´s ever made in a film. I have seen the film plenty of times since then, and i realized that this year the film turns 35 years old. So i thought it would be a perfect time to revisit the film for a 35 years anniversary review of The Lost Boys. Is this a timeless classic, or have The Lost Boys aged badly after all these years?

Michael Emerson ( Jason Patric ) and his younger brother, Sam Emerson ( Corey Haim ) move with their recently divorced Lucy Emerson ( Dianne West ) to the fictional small beach town Santa Carla, California to live with Michael and Sam´s grandfather. Michael begin to look around town, as he see a beautiful woman named Star ( Jamie Gertz ). He is not able to spend time to her, when the mysterious David Powers ( Kiefer Sutherland ), leader of a biker gang shows up. Michael is curious about David and his gang, as he begin to spend time with them. But these young men are not what they seem to be, as Michael finds out the real truth.

No matter how many years go by, The Lost Boys is one of those 80´s horror films that will forever entertain audiences worldwide. This film have so many good things going for it, especially with so many great characters. Let´s get into some of the things that makes The Lost Boys such a unique film. First of all the tone of the film is quite different from some of the other vampire films out there. You have a classic story of two brother´s growing up, trying to fit in a new environment, where they are forced to fight against evil that could break their family apart. And it is here where The Lost Boys is bit different from other vampire films with young people, since it clearly show how important it is for especially brother´s to stay united, no matter how difficult it may be. Then you also have the vampire gang that never stops to party, and this is a bit sad in some ways when you think about it. Even if you may never age, how fun will it be living young, while other people age and go through different phases of life and they never will? They will never experience what it feels like to change, not only as a person, but also feel different moments in life. No matter how many people they kill, they are just going around in a circle with no way out. I mentioned earlier that there are so many great characters in this film, so let´s talk about them for a while. Let us begin with Jason Patric ( worth checking out in the 2018 western film Big Kill, i suggest you pick up a DVD copy ) as the character Michael Emerson. You can tell that Michael is just like any young man, trying to find his place in life and be accepted. Jason really manage to capture all the emotions in his performance. Corey Haim as Sam Emerson is without a doubt one of my favourite acting performances from Haim. It feels like no one else could have played this character, the way that he does. Then you have The Frog Brothers, played by Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander, and this is another amazing combination of the right characters for this film. They both know how to portrait these vampire hunters in a way that not only feels right for this film, but they deliver some of the most entertaning dialogue scenes as well. The vampire gang lead by Keifer Sutherland is of course a big reason why i especially enjoyed this film, because he have a very unique screen presence that is hard to describe. Is this one of the most violent vampire films of the 80´s? No, but the thing that makes The Lost Boys one of the better films in this genre, is that this film focuses more on the fear of the unknown and does not need a lot of slaughtering to make you feel engaged in to the story. The characters is also a big part of why this is such a fun horror film as well. Director Joel Schumacher uses his camera technique in a very effective way, and deliver a different kind of vampire experience that works just as well as it did 35 years ago. The Lost Boys is not only a cult classic, but will continue to be one of the true 80´s horror classics for many generations ahead. A must have in your DVD or Blu Ray collection.

Rating: DDDD