The Lost Boys images owned by Warner Bros.
Here I am with another hot take on a beloved classic. Now, I’ll admit, this was better than I remember it being and to be fair, my first viewing was at 14, right after seeing Stand By Me and I expected Kiefer to basically be a vampire Ace Merrill, but I couldn’t get past the mullet. However, 23 years later, I popped in the VHS and gave it another go. Midway through, I said “I didn’t give this movie enough credit.” I stand by that, but I also stand by my hot take that it suffers from what most Joel Schumacher movies do - it doesn’t live up to its potential (Falling Down and The Client are exempt because those are perfection).
The vibe is great, music is on point, it starts strong driving in exactly what kind of story we’re about to experience when Lucy walks up to the community board and the woman is pinning a missing flyer for the security guard, but I feel like the whole story was too complex for the amount of time we have - while I’m a big proponent of the 90 minute movie, this could have used another 20-30 minutes to really make the Peter Pan point.
Before I start handing out awards, let’s talk about the people roaming this movie starting with my favorite - Grandpa. Grandpa is goals. Living alone in his TV free house full with your root beers on the second shelf, heck yeah! As a kid, I didn’t appreciate Sam, but his color blocked robe is a style choice I can get behind. Maybe it’s my creep-radar that’s developed over the years, but the moment Max enters the screen, I knew he was the head vampire. Maybe it’s the shoulder pads; maybe it’s David’s recklessness, but it was obvious to me.
All right, award time.
Best dressed goes to the head vampire himself, Max. It’s the shoulder pads.
Runner up is a 3 way tie between David, Star, and Laddie. For being a beach town, everyone is killing it with the overcoats.
This is a general award because I’ll follow Dianne Wiest into any movie she’s playing a mom in - so best on-screen mom goes to Dianne Wiest.
Finally, best line, the line that made this movie memorable, goes to Grandpa - “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires.”
Honorable mention is Michael because of Jason Patric and if you’ve ever heard me on the podcast Honor2beNominated talking about The Exorcist and my teenage girl crush on Father Karras played by Jason’s father, Jason Miller.
