There's no denying vampires and werewolves have enraptured us of late. But society's interest in the supernatural is nothing new. Cinematic history is chock full of flicks focusing on otherworldly beings. With more than a year (!!) until our favorite vampire franchise returns with "Breaking Dawn," we're passing the time by revisiting movies featuring creatures that go Bump In The Night or BITN (get it, bitten?)
September Is BITN By Vampires!
This week we're taking a look at "The Lost Boys," the campy 1987 horror flick that made Kiefer Sutherland a sex symbol!
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Haim
Release date: July 31, 1987
Synopsis: Two brothers, Michael and Sam, move with their mother Lucy to the fictional coastal California town of Santa Carla, which just so happens to be overrun with a gang of vampires. Michael becomes infatuated with a half-vampire named Star, ends up getting sucked into the gang by its leader, David, and becomes a half-vampire himself. Sam meets two young brothers and self-professed vampire hunters, Edgar and Alan, and together with Michael and Star seek to find and kill the mysterious head vampire so they can return all the half-vampires to normal.
Representation of vampires: "The Lost Boys" maintains a very traditional representation of vampires, despite the fact it is set in a modern time. Vamps don't have reflections, need to be staked to be killed, burn in the sunlight and are susceptible to garlic and silver. The film also adds on a loaded metaphor of these free-living vampires as a lost youth, as the title is a reference to the Lost Boys in "Peter Pan."
Good or evil: Definitely evil, with the head vampire being the most evil of all. Even though Kiefer Sutherland's David has turned evil, as have many of the other full-fledged vampires, we still feel for them when we realize that they're just a lost generation of youth that were corrupted by this crazy vampire. And then there's the half-vampires, who were turned but haven't killed anyone yet and thus haven't become full-vampires, like Michael and Star. They are easily considered good, because they have not yet caved to murdering humans.
Why we're BITN: This movie defines pretty much everything we love from the '80s, a definitive look at the teenage vampire genre, and is so much fun to boot, despite the fact that it's a horror film. It's one of the big Corey Haim and Corey Feldman movies that we love rewatching, plus we get to see a pre-"24" Kiefer back when he wasn't just Jack Bauer. And then there's the whole allegory of the film itself. The idea of "the lost boys" rings true even for our generation. But the bottom line is, we still can't get over the bottom line of the film: "Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire."
Is "The Lost Boys" in your ranks of favorite vampire movies?
