When You’re Strange: “The Lost Boys”

I recently spent five days inSanta Cruz, California, visiting members of my extended family. Though Ithoroughly enjoyed the classic boardwalk and the nearby redwoods, I didn’t spota single vampire. And now I’m just a wee bit disappointed. Perhaps I shouldexplain: last night I watched a cult classic shot largely in Santa Cruz, thoughin the film the town goes by the name of Santa Carla. The Lost Boys,directed by Joel Schumacher in 1987, is a horror film of a rather whimsicalsort. It posits that each evening the venerable beachside fun zone is overrunwith scruffy young biker types who sleep all day, hanging upside down from theceiling of a convenient seaside cave, and choose to drink something that looksan awful lot like blood.

 Schumacher’s contribution tovampire lore is a fascinating one. I believe he and his writers fudged, just abit, the classic rules of vampire evolution: I haven’t run into other vampirestories in which you can remain in a half-vampire state until your first kill,with the possibility that you can return straightaway to being fully human ifthe head of the pack is somehow bumped off. This is part of the optimisticstreak that makes The Lost Boys actually endearing. The project beganwith a smart writer cogitating on the gang of “lost boys” surrounding J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan. Living in the wild without conventional families, theseyoungsters formed themselves into a tribe that was ready for anything. And theyproved to be desperate to find themselves a mother.

 All of this subtly finds itsway into a contemporary story that takes advantage of Santa Cruz’s reputationfor a laid-back post-Sixties vibe. Set against the creepy biker guys, led by aspiky-haired young Kiefer Sutherland, is a wholesome family group. Mom DianneWiest, trying to recover from a painful divorce, has brought her two sons tolive with their curmudgeonly grandfather (Barnard Hughes, who has one of thefilm’s funniest lines). Hunky Michael (Jason Patric) is clearly restless,looking for a way out of the tight-knit family unit. When a gorgeous younghippie-type in a filmy outfit (Jamie Gertz) wafts by on the boardwalk, he’s agoner. Younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) loves his brother and his dog, and justwants to live out the summer at Grandpa’s in a comfortable way. He doesn’t knowwhat he’s in for when two intense young comic-book mavens named Edgar and AlanFrog (the indispensable Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) decide to educatehim about vampire lore. Suddenly, when he sees his big brother start to weardark glasses indoors, Sam realizes there’s a problem afoot. Set against all ofthis is Wiest’s amiable Lucy, trying to keep her family in line while pursuingan oft-thwarted romance with a buttoned-down boardwalk shopkeeper played byEdward Herrmann.

 Schumacher himself hascredited the film’s long-term success to the casting of brilliant young actorswho were just starting their careers. Though Kiefer Sutherland had already shotStand by Me, it had not yet been released when he went before thecameras in The Lost Boys. Jason Patric had previously made only onefilm, something called Solarbabies, before The Lost Boys turnedhim into a heartthrob. Teenagers Corey Haim and Corey Feldman became householdnames because of this movie, as well as best friends. They later appearedtogether several times on screen; an A&E reality series titled The TwoCoreys (2007-2008) sadly chronicles how their lives went downhill over theyears. (Haim died at age 38.) Fame, it seems, is even more dangerous thanvampires.