The Lost Boys

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The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys DVD cover
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Produced by Harvey Bernhard
Richard Donner
Written by Janice Fischer
James Jeremias
Jeffrey Boam
Starring Jason Patric
Kiefer Sutherland
Corey Haim
Corey Feldman
Music by Thomas Newman
Cinematography Michael Chapman
Editing by Robert Brown
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) July 31, 1987
Running time 93 min.
Country United States
Language English
Gross revenue $32,222,567 (USA) (sub-total)
$1,093,064 (Sweden) (sub-total)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Lost Boys is a 1987 American horror film about young Californians who must fight a gang of teenage vampires. It stars Jason Patric, Corey Haim, and Kiefer Sutherland, and co-stars Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, and Barnard Hughes. It was directed by Joel Schumacher. The film's title is derived from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A divorced mother and her two teenage sons, Michael and Samuel, move to live with the mother's father in the small California town of Santa Carla (based loosely on the city of Santa Cruz, California), plagued by problems with a motorcycle gang and unexplained disappearances.

The older boy, Michael (Jason Patric), is eventually drawn into the motorcycle gang because he feels attracted to the group's girl, Star (Jami Gertz), and because he doesn't want to look less than their charismatic leader, David (Kiefer Sutherland). After a sort of informal initiation ceremony with the gang involving dangerous activities such as motorcycle racing through the fog. Michael begins to hang out with them until he is made to drink blood in the guise of wine.(They had also made him eat rice which they made him believe was maggots) Soon afterwards, he starts showing the symptoms of vampirism. He sleeps all day and starts hanging out with them all night, which lasts until they drive him to a real hunt and show him that he must kill in order to survive.

This makes Michael react. With the help of Star, Laddie (a vampire child), and his brother Sam who in the meantime has joined up with two relatively inept vampire hunters (Edgar and Alan Frog), he sets out to shake off the curse by finding and killing the head vampire. This proves more difficult than it seems, as it is not evident who the leader is.

The movie ends with two twists: one regarding the identity of the head vampire who turns out to be the video store owner and the mother's boyfriend and that Grandpa knew that there were vampires in Santa Carla all along, stating this with the following quote: "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach... all the damned vampires."

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Box office and critical importance

The Lost Boys performed well at the U.S. box office, grossing over $32 million - a strong performance for an R-rated horror movie.

It won a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1987. The film was part of a postmodern trend to transplant the European folklore of vampires into the new world that included 1987's western-gothic Near Dark and the suburban Fright Night of 1985. Such works paved the way for other modern vampire movies and television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Lost Boys was the first performance together of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, who thereafter became known as the two Coreys for their performance together in a range of teen movies.

[edit] Possibility of sequels

Joel Schumacher made several attempts at a sequel during the 1990s. At one point a possible remake by the title of Lost Girls was mooted, but it never saw the light of day. An uncredited script for Lost Boys 2 has been circulating ever since the late 1980s. It's unknown if the script was a legitimate attempt at a sequel, or who wrote it. On January 17th, 2007, it was revealed that Warner Bros. was beginning production on a number of straight-to-video sequels for their existing library of franchise friendly films. Among these productions is "The Lost Boys 2", which is rumored to start shooting during the first quarter of 2007 in San Diego, CA. The only plot details known at this time is that the movie will focus on a band of surfing vampires. Whether or not any of the original cast will return remains unknown.

[edit] Music

Further information: The Lost Boys (soundtrack)

Thomas Newman wrote the film score which was an eerie blend of orchestra and organ arrangement to great effect. This score has never been officially released, although it is available as a bootleg which also contains several unused cues of score. It is unlikely it will be released in the foreseeable future.

The music soundtrack contains a number of notable songs and several covers, including "Good Times", a duet between INXS and former Cold Chisel lead singer Jimmy Barnes which reached number 1 on the Australian charts in early 1987. This cover version of a 1960s Australian hit by the Easybeats was originally recorded to promote the Australian Made tour of Australia in early 1987, headlined by INXS and Barnes.

Tim Capello's cover of The Call's "I Still Believe" was featured in the film as well as on the soundtrack. Tim Capello makes a small cameo appearance in the movie playing the song at the Santa Carla boardwalk, with his trademark bodybuilder muscles on display and saxophone.

The soundtrack also features a cover version of The Doors' song "People are Strange" by Echo & the Bunnymen. The song as it featured in the movie is an alternate, shortened version with a slightly different music arrangement. This version has not been released as of yet.

The theme song "Cry Little Sister" was originally recorded by Gerard McMann for the soundtrack, and later re-released on his self-titled album "G Tom Mac" in 2000. In 2003, the "toxic rock" band Zug Izland remade the track with a more juggalo tone called "Cry" on their debut album Cracked Tiles. In 2004, the Lost Brothers recorded it as "Cry Little Sister (I Need U Now)" with the track reaching the UK top 20 and Australian top 40. "Cry Little Sister" was also covered in 2004 by Carfax Abbey on their album Second Skin and covered again in 2005 by Blutengel on "The Oxidising Angel". The song has also been erroneously labeled as being by The Sisters of Mercy. Gerard McMann would go on to release a Live Performance version of the song as "Cry Little sister (Thou Shall Not...)" in 2005.

[edit] Trivia

  • The title of the film is a reference to the companions of Peter Pan, who remained forever young. Also similar to Peter Pan, the gang members could fly without turning into bats. Lucy shares her name with Lucy Westernra.
  • The original screenplay written by 'Janice Fischer' , and James Jeremias was about a bunch of "Goonie-type 5th-6th grade kid vampires", with the Frog Brothers being "chubby 8 year old cub scouts", and Star being a boy instead of a love interest. Joel Schumacher hated that idea and told the producers he would only sign on if he could change them to teenagers, as he thought it would be sexier and more interesting.
  • The names of the Frog brothers, Edgar and Alan, are a reference to Edgar Allan Poe, the well-known writer of horror fiction.
  • UK band Santa Carla, signed to Digital Wings, are named after the town in the Lost Boys.
  • The Tiger Army song "Santa Carla Twilight" is said to have been written to pay homage to the movie.
  • Finnish band The 69 Eyes did a song called "Lost Boys" on their "Devils" CD and as a single which is an homage to the film, and so is the video.
  • California band Death by Stereo is named for a line near the end of the movie.(Sam: Sweet, Death By Stereo!)
  • The term "vamp out" was created for this film. It went on to be used elsewhere such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
  • Keenan Wynn and John Carradine (a veteran of vampire films) were both original choices for Grandpa. Wynn died right before filming and Carradine was too ill.
  • Kiefer Sutherland's father, Donald, played a 'Watcher' (a teacher and mentor of vampire slayers) in the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • In Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Orange, while memorizing a cover story, mentions that he was "Trying to watch The Lost Boys." Ironically, he mentions said cover taking place in 1986, the year before The Lost Boys was released in theaters.
  • When composer Andrew Lloyd Webber saw The Lost Boys with his then-wife Sarah Brightman, she said to him that Joel Schumacher was the right person to direct the screen version of The Phantom of the Opera.
  • While Santa Carla is a fictional city, the real California city with the closest spelled name to it is Santa Clara, California. Santa Clara shares a city limit border with Sunnyvale, California, whose name is strikingly similar to Sunnydale, California, the setting of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • 'David' (Kiefer Sutherland) is impaled on a pair of antlers and doesn't disintegrate like the other vampires. Despite what Max later says, he is not really dead. This was intended to be picked up in the sequel, The Lost Girls, which was scripted but never made.
  • The movie didn't originally end on a joke. After the scene with Grampa at the refrigerator, it was supposed to cut to the surviving Lost Boys regrouping in the sunken hotel. The last shot was of a mural on the wall, made in the early 1900's, with Max in it - looking exactly the same as he did today. All of this appeared in an early draft of the script, but ultimately was never filmed.
  • Executive producer Richard Donner originally intended to direct the movie himself, but as production languished, he moved onto Lethal Weapon' (1987) and eventually hired Joel Schumacher for the job.
  • After Richard Donner passed on directing, Mary Lambert was brought in, but left due to "creative differences".
  • Kiefer Sutherland was only meant to wear the black gloves he wears as David when riding the motorbike. However, while messing around on the bike behind-the-scenes, he fell off, breaking his arm so he had to wear the gloves through the whole movie to cover his cast.
  • Though almost all of Kelly Jo Minter's scenes are deleted from the film, and the only true appearance she makes is over Lucy's shoulder in the video store, she still received billing the film's opening credits. Her scenes can be viewed in the 2004 Lost Boys DVD special features.
  • Sam (Corey Haim) has a poster of Rob Lowe on the outside of his closet door. On the DVD commentary, Joel Schumacher says that it was there because had recently directed Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire.
  • the movies "motto": "Sleep all day, Party all night, its fun to be a Vampire" has often been cited because of its likeness to the never sleeping idea of Clubland, or beach resort, as in "Santa Carla"

[edit] References to the Lost Boys

  • Haim and Feldman reference the Lost Boys in National Lampooon's Last Resort when Haim tries crossing himself to ward off an attacker. Feldman interrupts, "hey, cut that out. You already did that in Lost Boys."
  • The sitcom Big Wolf on Campus had Haim and Feldman appear in different episodes as themselves, but vampires, the story being that during the making of The Lost Boys, they actually became vampires.

[edit] External links

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