60 Days to Halloween - The Lost Boys
I’ll be a bit more loosey-goosey with the reviews over the
next 60 days, as these films are not “official write-ups” so it affords less
synopsis-based work. That isn’t really the point of the next two months anyway.
Originally I have always wanted to watch this film in a beach location on
vacation during the summer (preferably towards the end as this film just feels
like that kind of movie).
Watching it tonight, I think it fit right in the schedule, as summer teeters into the fall. A thought came across my mind during the initial scenes where Mike and Sam are touring the Boardwalk, how Santa [Cruz] Carla resembled Nawlins so much. Just the “everything goes” busy foot traffic and body of eccentrics and diversities that made up the city. Schumacher really imposes his style on us, which I think is part of the reason there are plenty critical of the film. Like how he insists on going overboard. When a vampire dies in a tub of holy water garlic and erodes into a skeleton, the sink in the bathroom, pipes, and sink in the kitchen all just exploding and erupting blood and water, gushing forth. Or how Laddie explodes from a bed and Schumacher turns on a fan machine it seems…really this kind of exercises free reign on jazzing up the vampires. When a vampire is staked in the lair of Herrmann’s Lost Boys, blood just showers over the Frog Brothers and Sam.
The camera travels through clouds, overhead of the city, atop victims in their cars; Schumacher is applying his own distinctive flair, calling attention to how flamboyant his style really is. He has a lot of flash. The film is a cool-looking movie, but it wears its 80s sensibilities, for sure. It is fully embracing all the colors in wardrobe, as you see in how Haim is dressed, the poofy hair, hip poses, and rock music soundtrack. I think that works for and against it depending on the audience. I have seen passionate reactions to it from different sides. Some see it as a product of its time, and that can be recognized as dating it badly or encourage constant revisits to it if you grew up with it, as I did.
Tonight, being 40 years old, a kid when it was on rotation on cable and in my VCR, I had a damn good time with it. I felt I had picked just the right kickoff movie. The jokes consistently amused me, the cast almost all (except maybe Patric who I always considered a charisma vacuum, but he has that brooding emoting with the sunshades and sour Warhol Factory face Schumacher probably loved to capture on his camera) give me smiles in my heart (I just love Dianne Wiest as the mom; I never felt she got the credit she deserved as the tolerant and upbeat mom who dealt with a lot of divorcee upheaval, having to uproot the family from Phoenix to Santa Carla), and the Boardwalk atmosphere was alive and happening.
Schumacher really nails the personality of the city and all it unique inhabitants. The sendup of the vampire clichés with how Herrmann is “tested” by Sam and the Frogs, the biker gang bad boys led by the badass Kiefer who makes the small screen time (it had been mentioned that he’s not really in the film very long really yet he feels like such a dominant presence throughout) count at all times, and the color scheme aesthetic Schumacher incorporates certainly gets your attention…good or bad is up to the viewer.
Won’t fail to not mention Barnard Hughes as the kooky taxidermist father of Weist, granddad of Patric and Haim…his TV guide (and no TV!), stuffed animals and scattered antlers/racks, and the car he never drives (don’t mess with his root beer or double-stuffed Oreos either!) do nothing but endear him to us. And those damn vampires continued to give Santa Carla the notorious moniker of “Murder Capital of the World”. Well, there was plenty of local stock to bleed! Too bad rocking to “Walk This Way” around a bonfire away from the city might not be the brightest decision considering the moniker.
Watching it tonight, I think it fit right in the schedule, as summer teeters into the fall. A thought came across my mind during the initial scenes where Mike and Sam are touring the Boardwalk, how Santa [Cruz] Carla resembled Nawlins so much. Just the “everything goes” busy foot traffic and body of eccentrics and diversities that made up the city. Schumacher really imposes his style on us, which I think is part of the reason there are plenty critical of the film. Like how he insists on going overboard. When a vampire dies in a tub of holy water garlic and erodes into a skeleton, the sink in the bathroom, pipes, and sink in the kitchen all just exploding and erupting blood and water, gushing forth. Or how Laddie explodes from a bed and Schumacher turns on a fan machine it seems…really this kind of exercises free reign on jazzing up the vampires. When a vampire is staked in the lair of Herrmann’s Lost Boys, blood just showers over the Frog Brothers and Sam.
The camera travels through clouds, overhead of the city, atop victims in their cars; Schumacher is applying his own distinctive flair, calling attention to how flamboyant his style really is. He has a lot of flash. The film is a cool-looking movie, but it wears its 80s sensibilities, for sure. It is fully embracing all the colors in wardrobe, as you see in how Haim is dressed, the poofy hair, hip poses, and rock music soundtrack. I think that works for and against it depending on the audience. I have seen passionate reactions to it from different sides. Some see it as a product of its time, and that can be recognized as dating it badly or encourage constant revisits to it if you grew up with it, as I did.
Tonight, being 40 years old, a kid when it was on rotation on cable and in my VCR, I had a damn good time with it. I felt I had picked just the right kickoff movie. The jokes consistently amused me, the cast almost all (except maybe Patric who I always considered a charisma vacuum, but he has that brooding emoting with the sunshades and sour Warhol Factory face Schumacher probably loved to capture on his camera) give me smiles in my heart (I just love Dianne Wiest as the mom; I never felt she got the credit she deserved as the tolerant and upbeat mom who dealt with a lot of divorcee upheaval, having to uproot the family from Phoenix to Santa Carla), and the Boardwalk atmosphere was alive and happening.
Schumacher really nails the personality of the city and all it unique inhabitants. The sendup of the vampire clichés with how Herrmann is “tested” by Sam and the Frogs, the biker gang bad boys led by the badass Kiefer who makes the small screen time (it had been mentioned that he’s not really in the film very long really yet he feels like such a dominant presence throughout) count at all times, and the color scheme aesthetic Schumacher incorporates certainly gets your attention…good or bad is up to the viewer.
Won’t fail to not mention Barnard Hughes as the kooky taxidermist father of Weist, granddad of Patric and Haim…his TV guide (and no TV!), stuffed animals and scattered antlers/racks, and the car he never drives (don’t mess with his root beer or double-stuffed Oreos either!) do nothing but endear him to us. And those damn vampires continued to give Santa Carla the notorious moniker of “Murder Capital of the World”. Well, there was plenty of local stock to bleed! Too bad rocking to “Walk This Way” around a bonfire away from the city might not be the brightest decision considering the moniker.
But for me seeing Corey Haim before the drugs introduced to him fucked up his life and Feldman with Jamison Newlander as the comic book store “monster hunters” (their oh so serious tone achieves even more laughs) is my special treat from the movie. They are why it means so much to me. I’m an unapologetic Haim/Feldman fanboy. No matter what others think about them, I care about both of them. It all comes from growing up with them and being quite fond of them. Sure at the end, their lives and careers might not be what they once were/are, but I trip back to Santa Carla and see them in the real prime before the decline. Haim was on quite a roll, too. As was Feldman, really. When watching The Lost Boys, though, I don’t dwell on how it all went wrong. Instead, I just see Haim when he was fresh-faced, healthy, young, and happy. This film defines that Corey to me, not the addict who deteriorated and eventually found himself cast adrift with little left to hold onto. I so badly wish things had turned around. Feldman isn’t gone, but he’s considered a joke by many, a punchline. It hurts my heart this is where he is at, but especially I ache that Haim never could reclaim his footing. With such promise, Haim couldn’t quite capitalize. But in The Lost Boys he’s a kid with plenty of quips and energy, the hair and pattern-wardrobe, and kills a vampire with a crossbow, ending in electrocution through a stereo…how many can say that?
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