“You’ll never grow old”
There are a few horror movies that really peak my 80s nostalgia level, but none maybe more than the original, and in my opinion ONLY, Lost Boys films.
Recently divorced Lucy needs a fresh start and a new place to live. She takes her two sons Michael, and Sam, and their dog Nanook and moves their lives down to Santa Carla, California. She moves in with her eccentric father just off the coast and attempts to rebuild their lives. Lucy gets a job at a local movie rental place, and befriends the owner, Max. The boys meet some new friends while hanging out at the boardwalk. Michael finds a group around his age and starts to hang around them more and more. Sam meets up with “The Frog Brothers” at a comic shop and they start to tell him about all the strange things that happen around Santa Carla.
As the days pass, Michael starts to notice that his new friends are a lot stranger than he once thought. One night he is eating Chinese food with them and hallucinates that they are eating maggots and worms, and after drinking the “wine” they had, he passes out. Michael, now sleeps most if not all of the day and really doesn’t want to do anything until the sun goes down and is then out all night with his friends. He soon realizes that they are, in fact, vampires and he too is turning. “You’ll never grow old, Michael, and you can never die. But you must feed.” David tells him as they drain a group of bikers of their blood.
Sam quickly realizes that the Frog Brothers aren’t messing around. Things in Santa Carla are definitely way worse than most people realize. Vampires not only exist, but his brother is now becoming one himself. He soon comes to the conclusion they have to wipe out the Vampires to save his brother, or they have to destroy Michael as well. Lucy, being almost completely oblivious to all this goes about her daily life until she is pulled in by what she thinks is Sam being rebellious and Michael just withdrawing from his family.
I could gush about this movie all day, honestly. I really don’t even need to see the movie to write a review of it. I watched The Lost Boys probably fifty or more times when I used to live at home with my family. My sister loved the movie and watched it all the time, and that basically meant so did I. The 80s-ness of this movie is so damn thick you would need a team of industrial-strength powerwashers to get it off of you. From the music to the clothes, the dialog and let’s not forget the effin “Coreys”. Sure there were more movies featuring both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim but this is the definitive “Coreys” movie. Not to mention young Kiefer Sutherland, Alex Winter, Dianne Weist, and prolific actor Edward Herrmann. I really don’t know what I wanted more watching this movie as a kid… to either be a vampire or to hunt them down with the Frog Brothers.
I don’t know if The Lost Boys translates as well for the current generation of movie watchers but if you were a child of the late 70s early 80s and even remotely enjoyed horror movies, this one resonates to this day. There are a few movies out there that really make me feel like a kid again and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that The Lost Boys sits pretty damn high on that list. If you have never seen this one before, please… watch it.
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