THE LOST BOYS - REVIEW


Going back to The Lost Boys halfway through watching Season 1 of 24 was a bit of a jarring move, granted, but all this admittedly kick-ass Jack Bauer superhero stuff just made me miss the good old evil Kiefer Sutherland I knew and loved back in the day.

Was never a huge fan of The Lost Boys, but I remember watching it and enjoying it fine. Seeing it now, I think I "get" it more. Not that it's a particularly hard one to figure out but I found it was much more tongue-in-cheek than I recalled. Corey Haim avoids the annoying-80's-movie-kid syndrome found in most kid-friendly flicks of the time and actually does a good job. The Corey Feldman/Jamison Newlander vampire-hunting/comic-book-selling duo are a lot of fun and the vampire gang, led by a terrific Sutherland and an especially ridiculous-looking Alex Winter, are so OTT they're inherently enjoyable.

Director Joel Schumacher (on a good day here) is clever enough to have the always great Dianne Wiest and the ever reliable Edward Herrmann give the movie a strong acting structure instead of just letting the kids loose, dominating the entire thing. Lost Boys suffers a bit from its erratic camerawork which tends to feel a bit all over the place at times. Sure it gives the film more of a raw feel throughout but it can be a tad distracting and the fact that you never really see the vampire gang fly, instead leaving the wide-angle POV shots to do the job, is a bit disappointing. Once the vampire "twist" is revealed we should have been rewarded with some vamp-flight awesomeness. I guess maybe the budget wasn't there and I guess had they attempted such an effect on a shitty budget it might have looked a bit rubbish. Perhaps Schumacher avoided that with good reason, who knows?

One thing I never realised is that the Sutherland gang weren't actually introduced as vampires straight away. I mean, I don't see how anyone could have NOT guessed these guys were the culprits all along but I never saw that revelation as... a revelation. I kinda just assumed that the guys who looked like vampires and acted like vampires were... the vampires. Call me crazy. A twist that does work a bit better though is the whole "head vampire" business. It's a fun idea and very cleverly handled.

Like Fright Night, The Lost Boys is self-aware and knows exactly what it's going for: a teen-friendly cool vampire comedy with enough style, jokes and good ideas to make the whole thing feel fresh and completely entertaining. Fright Night is the superior film but The Lost Boys is a fun ride and one I wouldn't mind taking again at some point.

It's more Buffy The Vampire Slayer than Near Dark but good stuff nonetheless.

...

I like Buffy...

 

UPDATE: For more Lost Boys talk (with added Teen Wolf) head over to the As You Were blog. Crazy granddad's glorious last line was indeed worthy of mention ;)

Comments

  1. Great retro-review -- it is an odd movie made compelling by better-than-average turns from the secondary characters, especially Sutherland, Wiest and Hermann. This must be a meme right now, as I just blogged about this myself.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT - REVIEW

24: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

THE ADDAMS FAMILY MUSICAL - REVIEW