tek's rating:

The Lost Boys (R)
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Recently divorced Lucy Emerson (Dianne Wiest) moves from Phoenix to Santa Carla with her sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam, to live with her father (Barnard Hughes). Michael sees a girl he likes at a concert, and starts hanging out with her. However, Star (Jami Gertz) is already involved with the leader of a biker gang named David (Kiefer Sutherland). Michael then gets involved with these guys, to be close to Star, but they do some freaky things, such as making rice look like maggots and noodles look like worms. After being tricked in this wise, Michael doesn't believe Star when she tries to warn him that some "wine" they give him is actually blood. Naturally, it is- David's blood- and when he drinks it, he becomes a half vampire. Though this takes him surprisingly long to realize.

Meanwhile, Sam is befriended by a couple of weird kids in a comic shop: the Frog Brothers, Edgar and Alan. (Edgar is played by Corey Feldman and Sam by Corey Haim, and I think this is the first of several films the two Coreys would famously star in together.) Edgar and Alan give Sam a couple of comic books to read about vampires, and tell him to hope he never has to call them for their help. Of course, eventually, he does, when he realizes his brother is becoming a vampire. The Frog Brothers advocate killing him outright, but Sam would prefer to find and kill the head vampire, to revert all the half vampires (including Michael, Star, and a little boy named Laddie) to humans.

Of course, Lucy is oblivious to any of this. She's recently taken a job working for a man named Max (Edward Herrmann), whom she also starts dating. She is, however, concerned about Michael staying out all night and sleeping all day, and seeming rather distant of late. And she thinks Sam is trying to break up her and Max, when he keeps acting strangely. Grandpa, meanwhile, is rather odd himself, as he mainly seems to be into taxidermy, and dating some widow (whom we never meet). Still, he's kinda cool, and funny, and... you know, that's all I wanna say about him right now.

Well, eventually Michael, Sam, and the Frog Brothers head to the vampires' cave where they sleep during the day, to take Star and Laddie away, and hopefully kill the vampires... though they only manage to get one of them, and then have to run away and prepare for nightfall, when they know the remaining vampires will be coming for them. And finally, we have the climactic battle of good guys vs. bad guys. Which is fun.

I can't really classify this as a "scary movie," because... well, I just didn't find it very scary. Also because it has other elements besides horror. Many would classify it as "comedy," and certainly it's a fairly funny movie, but it's also serious, so I didn't want to put it in that category, either. So I'm just going to classify is as "supernatural." Anyway, as far as I'm concerned it's a classic, and I love it. Not the way I love some movies, but still... it has a special place in my heart. I can't really put my finger on why. The writing isn't the greatest, nor the acting, nor the story, nor any one element I can think of. I love the story, I like the characters, or at least the Coreys (and Grandpa) are cool. I like the music, especially "Cry Little Sister" and "People Are Strange." And I love the last line of the movie. I dunno, maybe it's just that it was my first decent taste of modern vampire mythology. Whatever, it doesn't matter; as I've said elsewhere, it's not about how good I think a movie is, it's about how much I like it. Whether I can explain (or understand) why I like it or not. Anyway, this movie just rocks....

There was a direct-to-DVD sequel in 2008 (21 years after the original) called The Tribe, and another in 2010 called The Thirst.


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