The Lost Boys is a 1987 American horror film about two young Arizonans who move to California and end up fighting a gang of teenage vampires. Directed by Joel Schumacher, the film stars Jason Patric, Corey Haim, and Kiefer Sutherland, and co-stars Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes. The title is a reference to the Lost Boys in J. M. Barrie's stories about Peter Pan and Neverland.

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Plot

Michael and Sam move with their mother Lucy to Santa Carla, a coastal California town plagued with gang activity and unexplained disappearances. The family moves in with Lucy's father, a cantankerous old man who lives in the outlying suburbs of town and who decorates his house with the product of his hobby: taxidermy.

The center of town life seems to be the local boardwalk. While Lucy gets a job at a local video and electronics store run by a man named Max, Michael is fascinated by a beautiful young woman he sees at a concert, but she quickly leaves the boardwalk with David, the leader of the local gang. The following night he finds the young woman again and learns her name is Star. As they are about to leave together on Michael's motorcycle, David reappears and provokes Michael into a motorcycle race where Michael is almost baited into going over the edge of a sea-cliff. Michael punches David, who responds by inviting Michael to his lair, an old dilapidated hotel that sank after an earthquake.

At the lair, the gang leads Michael through an unsettling initiation, culminating with a swig from a wine bottle. A concerned Star warns Michael the wine is blood, but she is ignored. Later that night, Michael joins the gang in hanging underside elevated train tracks. A train passes, and a stunned Michael watches the gang members purposefully fall off into a foggy gorge below. Unable to hold on any longer, Michael falls in as well. He wakes up in his bed, groggy and disoriented.

In the meantime, Sam has made the acquaintance of two young brothers, Edgar and Alan Frog - a duo who not only run the local comics store, but also hunt seek and hunt vampires in the area. Sam is skeptical of their claims but begins to notice Michael's strange behavior, such as sleeping all day, being sensitive to sunlight, and an episode of bloodlust. Michael's behavior gets worse, but Sam ignores the Frog brothers' pleas to kill him. The gang reveals to Michael that they are indeed vampires, and then show him by murdering teenagers at a party. Michael almost succumbs but leaves to meet Star, who says they are both "half vampires," who will not achieve full status until they have killed. Michael and Star have sex.

Sam learns that if the "head vampire" is slain, all "half vampires" will revert to human form. Due to his suspicious behavior, the store owner, Max, is suspected as the head vampire. Complicating things is that Max and Lucy are now dating. Sam and the brothers attempt several tests on Max (garlic, mirrors, etc) and all prove that he is human. The plan now is to invade the lair during daytime and slay the sleeping vampires, hoping that one of them is the head vampire. Michael rescues Star and her brother, Laddie. When the Frog brothers kill a vampire, his screams alert David and the other two vamps. The good guys retreat out of the cave while David promises revenge come sundown.

That night, Lucy is on a date with Max and Grandfather is away. Michael and the teens prepare for the gang's assault, arming themselves for the battle. The three remaining vampires attack and chaos ensues. Sam kills one with an arrow through the heart while another is knocked into a bath tub filled with holy water. Michael and David fly and battle until Michael impales David on deer antlers and kills him. However, Michael is still a vampire. Max and Lucy then appear and Max reveals himself to be the head vampire after all; the tests hadn't worked because he had been freely invited into the house by Michael before. He reveals that he had wanted Lucy as his mate and that his "family" and hers would merge. As Max is about to bite Lucy's neck, her father crashes his jeep through the wall of the house; the vehicle's hood is piled up with the large spiked fence posts, one of which impales Max, killing him. As the others stare in amazement, Grandpa casually gets a root beer from the refrigerator and remarks, "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach... all the damn vampires," indicating that he knew all about the vampires from the very beginning.

Cast

• Jason Patric as Michael Emerson
• Kiefer Sutherland as David
• Corey Haim as Sam Emerson
• Dianne Wiest as Lucy Emerson
• Barnard Hughes as Grandpa Emerson
• Edward Herrmann as Max
• Jami Gertz as Star
• Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog
• Jamison Newlander as Alan Frog
• Brooke McCarter as Paul
• Billy Wirth as Dwayne
• Alex Winter as Marko

Keenan Wynn and John Carradine (a veteran of vampire films) were both original choices for Grandpa. Wynn died right before filming and Carradine was too ill. Though almost all of Kelly Jo Minter's scenes are deleted from the film, and the only true appearance she makes is over Lucy's shoulder in the video store, she still received billing in the film's opening credits. Her scenes can be viewed in the 2004 Lost Boys DVD special features.

Production

• The greater majority of the movie was filmed in the city of Santa Cruz, California, and the surrounding Santa Cruz mountains. The amusement park scenes were filmed at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. This is the same park that appeared in Brotherhood of Justice (1986) (TV) (also starring Kiefer Sutherland). The Boardwalk also was seen in the Dirty Harry sequel Sudden Impact (1983) and Harold and Maude (1971). Only the inside of the Cave and house were filmed on Stages 12 and 15 at Warner Brothers.
• The original screenplay written by 'Janice Fischer', and James Jeremias was about a bunch of "Goonie -type 5th-6th grade kid vampires", with the Frog Brothers being "chubby 8-year-old Cub Scouts", and Star being a boy instead of a love interest. Joel Schumacher hated that idea and told the producers he would only sign on if he could change them to teenagers, as he thought it would be sexier and more interesting.
• Executive producer Richard Donner originally intended to direct the movie himself, but as production languished, he moved on to Lethal Weapon (1987) - and eventually hired Joel Schumacher for the job.
• The movie didn't originally end on a joke. After the scene with Grandpa at the refrigerator, it was supposed to cut to the surviving Lost Boys regrouping in the sunken hotel. The last shot was of a mural on the wall, made in the early 1900s, with Max in it - looking exactly the same even though nearly 100 years had passed, a la The Shining. All of this appeared in an early draft of the script, but ultimately was never filmed.
• Kiefer Sutherland was only meant to wear black gloves when riding the motorbike. However, while messing around on the bike behind-the-scenes he fell off, breaking his wrist, which forced him to wear the gloves through the whole movie to cover his cast.

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, especially at that time.

It won a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1987. The film was part of an 80s trend to make the vampire figures of the stories of old more applicable to audiences in the 1980s, one that included 1987's western-gothic Near Dark and the suburban Fright Night of 1985.

The Novel

As was the case for many of Warner Brothers' films at the time, Craig Shaw Gardner was given a copy of the script and asked to write a short novel to accompany the film's release. It was released in paperback by Berkley Publishing and is 220 pages long. It includes several scenes later dropped from the film such as Michael working as a trash man for money to buy his leather jacket. It expands the roles of the opposing gang, the Surf Nazis, who were seen as nameless victims of the vampires in the film. It includes several tidbits of vampire lore, such as not being able to cross running water and salt sticking to their forms. It has become something of a collector's item among fans with prices ranging from $20 for a well-read and somewhat battered copy to well over a $150 for copies in good condition (see external links).

The sequels

"David" (Kiefer Sutherland) is impaled on a pair of antlers but doesn't disintegrate like the other vampires. Despite what Max later says, he is not really supposed to be dead. This was intended to be picked up in a sequel, The Lost Girls , which was scripted but never made. In Lost Boys: The Tribe this is explained away as a vampire being able to be killed by anything through the heart, not just a wooden stake. David does not appear in Lost Boys: The Tribe . He makes a reappearance in the comic book series, The Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs , which serves as a prequel to Lost Boys: The Tribe and explains the antlers missed his heart.

Scripts for this and other sequels have been circulating since the late 1980s, and the original film's director, Joel Schumacher, made several attempts at one during the 1990s.

Finally, over 20 years after the release of the original film, Lost Boys: The Tribe , was greenlighted. Corey Feldman reprises his role as Edgar Frog, with cameos by Jamison Newlander and Corey Haim as Alan Frog and Sam Emerson, respectively. Kiefer Sutherland's half-brother Angus Sutherland takes over the role of lead vampire in the sequel.

In March 2009, MTV reported that work had begun on a third "Lost Boys" movie. Corey Feldman will serve as an executive producer as well as act reprising his role of Edgar Frog. ^[1]

Music

Thomas Newman wrote the film score to be an eerie blend of orchestra and organ arrangement while the music soundtrack contains a number of notable songs and several covers, 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.

Tim Capello's cover of The Call's "I Still Believe" was featured in the film as well as on the soundtrack. Tim Capello makes a small cameo appearance in the movie playing the song at the Santa Carla boardwalk, with his saxophone and trademark bodybuilder muscles on display.

The soundtrack also features a cover version of The Doors' song "People are Strange" by Echo & the Bunnymen. The song as it featured in the movie is an alternate, shortened version with a slightly different music arrangement. This version has not been released as of yet.

Lou Gramm, the famed lead singer of Foreigner, also recorded "Lost in the Shadows" for the soundtrack, along with a video which featured clips from the film. ^[2]

The theme song, "Cry Little Sister", was originally recorded by Gerard McMahon (under his pseudonym of Gerard McMann) for the soundtrack, and later re-released on his self-titled album "G Tom Mac" in 2000. In the sequel of the film the theme song "Cry Little Sister" was covered by a Seattle based rock band "Aiden". ^[3] A re-make of the song was done by Zug Izland. Many of the lyrics were changed, including some apparent mondegreens. Zug Izland's song is called "Cry" and is featured on their album "Cracked Tiles."

Songs not on the soundtrack

• "Walk This Way" - Run-D.M.C./Aerosmith
• "Ain't Got No Home" - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry
• "Groovin'" - The Rascals
• "Some Other Day"
• "Crazy Old Soldier" - Troy Seals

References in popular culture

The phrase "vamp-out" has gone on to be used elsewhere, including as slang on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Other Buffy connections include Kiefer Sutherland's father, Donald Sutherland, who played the role of Buffy's first Watcher, Merrick, in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film. The film, however, was not canon to the TV series.

In a number of sitcoms, Haim and Feldman reference The Lost Boys . In National Lampoon's Last Resort , Haim tries crossing himself to ward off an attacker. Feldman interrupts, "Hey, cut that out. You already did that in The Lost Boys ."

Plus, the show 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.

In the movie Reservoir Dogs Mr. Orange talks about how he was interrupted in his efforts to watch the movie.

Hardcore punk group Death By Stereo gets their name from a line spoken by Sam Emerson. A clip from the movie can be heard on the first song of their album If Looks Could Kill, I'd Watch You Die.

The song "Santa Carla Twilight" by psychobilly band Tiger Army is named after the town in The Lost Boys and makes references to vampirism.

The movie inspired the eponymous song "Lost Boys" by Finnish rock band The 69 Eyes. The movie-adapting video for the song was directed by Bam Margera.

The 2004 Activision video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines makes reference to the film during a quest in the Hollywood hub. The quest involves the player convincing a food critic to give a certain cafe a bad review. If the player's character is a Malkavian, they may use their power of Dementation to make him think he's eating maggots. The line is identical to Kiefer Sutherland's character's spoken dialogue in the film with the phrase "Not like this is from a movie or anything..." added at the end.

In an episode of Psych entitled "Poker? I Hardly Know Her!", Shawn refers to the movie when asking Gus about the rule involving vampires needing to be invited into a dwelling, saying, "Gus, you've seen 'Lost Boys' like 14 times, what's the rule?"

Industrial rock band Dope Stars Inc. references the movie's tagline in their song "Infection 13": 'Sleep all day, party all night, never grow old and never die'.

Welsh post-hardcore band The Blackout have a promo photo of them dressed and posed identically as the movie poster for the film.

References

1. MTV Movies Blog » ‘Lost Boys’ Threequel On The Way, Corey Feldman To Return
2. 80s Music Channel: Lost in the Shadows
3. 80s Music Channel: Cry Little Sister