Lost Boys: The Tribe (R / unrated)
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Caution: potential spoilers.

This is a 2008 direct-to-DVD sequel to the 1987 movie The Lost Boys. I was worried that it wouldn't be any good, but while it's far below the quality of the original, I actually thought it was okay. However, every review I've read said it sucked, and it even has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I think that's kind of excessive, though. Seriously, it's not a bad movie. There are things I didn't particularly like about it, but there's nothing I hated about it. There's too much sex and gore for my taste, though probably some people would say those are the only good things in the movie. The characters are all pretty flat, and the acting's not really good, particularly that of Angus Sutherland as head vampire Shane, but I don't think it was as bad as most reviews make it out to be. (Shane might seem a bit wooden, but dammit, I think there are plenty of people who are just as wooden as that in real life. My main complaint about his acting was probably his accent, which sounded to me like a bad attempt at "valley" mixed with a really bad attempt at, I dunno, suave, or something.) Reviewers have also said some of Corey Feldman's dialog as Edgar Frog was lifted directly from the original movie. I didn't notice that he said the same things, but I did notice he said the same kind of things; that is, lame one-liners. It was funnier in the original, but even if it's strange that his character hasn't evolved at all in the decades between films, I find it hard to complain about a character acting like, you know, himself.

Anyway, there's this brother and sister named Chris and Nicole Emerson (Autumn Reeser), who have just moved to Luna Bay, California. (I read the name of the town online; in the movie I never heard or saw it anywhere, though I believe I heard "Malibu" said at some point.) Incidentally, something that didn't occur to me during the film was that "Emerson" was the name of the characters from the first movie, though there's no indication of Chris and Nicole being related to them. Um... their aunt Jillian rents them a dump of a house (where they'd expected to stay for free), and she pops in occasionally for, I guess, comic relief, or something. (Which is unnecessary, because there's plenty of comedy in the rest of the movie, though whether any of it is funny is debatable.) Though actually I did enjoy her part in the final scene of the movie... not nearly as good as Grandpa's part at the end of the original, but still it was kind of amusing. Anyway, we don't ever learn much about Nicole, but Chris is a former surfing champion who was forced out of the profession because of bad behavior. He soon meets another former surfing champ named Shane Powers, who invites him to a party.

Chris doesn't want to go to the party, but Nicole convinces him, because she does want to go. Chris ends up in the shower with a hot chick named Lisa, and Nicole spends some time with Shane. He gives her a drink, and she starts to feel strange, so naturally, he makes her feel better by giving her a ride on his motorcycle. When they get back, Chris is pissed at Shane for, you know, showing an interest in his sister. Which seems like a ridiculous double standard, considering his own actions with Lisa. He's overprotective of her probably because their parents died recently, and he doesn't want to lose her, too, but that's... pretty weak story logic, I think. Anyway, Chris takes Nicole home, but she soon gets sick, and a bit later attacks Chris. However, she's stopped by Edgar Frog, the only character from the original movie to make a significant appearance in this one. (He's now hunting vampires without the help of his brother, Alan, who isn't in this movie.) Earlier, Chris had gone to Edgar's place looking for work as a surfboard shaper (whatever that means), but not finding him home, had left a note with his address on it. Which is how Edgar found them, though it's not clear how he had any idea they'd be mixed up with vampires. But... after knocking out Nicole, he informs Chris that she's become a vampire.

Just like Michael in the original, Nicole was actually just a half vampire, until she makes her first kill. The only way to return her humanity is to kill the head vampire, before Nicole kills anyone. (She'd become a half vampire by drinking the head vampire's blood- the drink Shane had given her.) The automatic assumption is that Shane is the head vampire, which seems reasonable enough. I had my doubts about that, thinking there should be a twist ending, and kept trying to figure out who might be the real head vampire... but, hey, maybe I was wrong. I'm not gonna say whether it was really Shane or not. I'll just say that I have mixed feelings about whether it should have been, because if it wasn't Shane, that makes the plot... well, twist-deficient. But if it was someone else... there's no other character that would've made any sense at all (but I wouldn't expect a thing like sense to be a major consideration, in a movie like this). Anyway, Chris decides that he should also become a half vampire, so he could find their nest and lead Edgar there. Meanwhile, there's this random guy named Evan, who had given Nicole his phone number soon after she and Chris first arrived in town. He's a potential love interest for her, though of course she's totally into Shane, especially after becoming a half vampire. The other vamps eventually abduct Evan, who Shane will later try to get Nicole to kill, to complete her transformation. (Obviously Evan's a better match for Nicole than Shane is, being human and all, but it's still ridiculous since they don't know each other at all, beyond first names. Seriously, the totally random "Michael and Star" match in the original movie seems deep, by comparison.)

I don't want to reveal how it all ends, so I won't say any more about the plot. But there were some interesting peripheral bits, like the vampires (who are all surfers, and call themselves "the tribe") doing stuff that normal guys their age do, like playing video games and jokingly insulting each other, as well as stuff like stabbing and disemboweling each other for fun, just because they know their friends won't really get hurt by it (even if they do get annoyed). That struck me as something a lot of guys these days would do for fun, if they knew it wouldn't cause real harm. Because people today suck, like that. So... I appreciated the realism. Another fun thing about the movie, I thought, was learning that Edgar has been ordained online, so he can make his own holy water. (It kind of made me think he should just do that to the ocean while the vamps are out surfing, but sadly, that never occurs to anyone in the movie.) And there were any number of little things that I found amusing, in a dumb way... in fact almost exactly the same way as the original movie, but with less charm and originality. Other than that, I dunno what else to say except it's always nice to see Autumn Reeser. And there's a comic book prequel to the movie, which I haven't read, but I'd like to, at some point.

And just a little ways into the closing credits, there's a quick bonus scene where Edgar faces off against a vampire named Sam. I didn't have any idea who that was until I read online, after watching the movie, that it was actually Sam Emerson from the original movie (played by Corey Haim). I definitely want to learn more about that. I expect it (and whatever happened to Alan Frog) would maybe be explained in the comic book, so I really should pick it up....

Followed by Lost Boys: The Thirst