[Awesome in the 80s] The Lost Boys

[Kyle]

So similar to other movie ideas, I'm thinking of doing an "Awesome in the 80s" run where once a month or so, we'll give ourselves a week to watch an awesome 80s movie and then post up about it after the week closes.

I'd like to start with The Lost Boys, which available for free on Tubi, but can be rented anywhere. If anyone is game, let me know. I'd like to watch it over the next week and then open it up for posts a week from Saturday. Anyone interested?

[Mike]

Me!

[Kyle]

Yes!

[Kyle]

Who else?!?

[Eliahad]

Awwww, this is the start of rehearsal week. I won't have enough consecutive minutes to watch a movie until October. Maybe if I downloaded it and had the action narrator reading all the scenes? Can I get it on Audible?

[Eliahad]

Wow, who was cranky this morning? Me! I was cranky this morning. Sorry about that.

[Tahlvin]

I’ll have to see if I can fit this in. Had a quick trip back to visit family today and lost a whole day.

[Kyle]

I'm going to have a couple kids watch it with me this week.

[Kyle]

Don't forget to watch this if you have time! The thread opens up on Sunday morning!

[Kyle]

I watched it!

[Eliahad]

And how did it go?

[Kyle]

Discussion doesn't open until tomorrow.

[Eliahad]

And how did it go?

[Kyle]

It was great! And it held up surprisingly great! No homophobic jokes. No rapey stuff. Jamie Gertz, the main love interest for Michael (the older brother) is agentless and an object to move the plot along, but that's true of a lot of movies today too. And she's offset by Diane Wiest's character as the mom, who I thought was great. The movie was paced and plotted like a modern movie (a tight 98 minutes- so it never dragged). The only thing that was really dated was the clothing and lingo, but it was note-perfect for 1987, when the film was released.

Something that really stood out to me was the casting and performances of such a young cast. The Coreys were like 16 or 17 and everyone of the other young people was 21 or 22. Unlike movies made today, it was really refreshing to see young people cast to play their ages (or close to it). The Coreys were great, but Corey Haim's performance really carries the movie. He's funny, irreverent, and desperately trying to play cooler than he knows he is. He's the heart of the whole film.

Another smart choice they made was to keep a lot of the effects off camera. So there wasn't a lot of bad FX or rubber suits for the vampires. While the flying-on-wires fight scenes seem antiquated by today's standards, the claustrophobic environments they used them in really worked to make them still effective and fun to watch.

Look, I loved this movie in the 80s and I loved it when I watched it a couple of days ago. It holds up great and has everything you need in a teen horror: unsupervised kids; disbelieving parents; actually scary vampires; a siege preparation sequence. It checks all the boxes and I feel like is really the standard bearer for teen horror. As the director, Joel Schumacher made all the right choices and really made a masterpiece in popcorn horror fun. So great.

[Mike]

Kyle is spot on here. I loved the film 35 years ago, and I am shocked at how well it holds up today. I agree that Haim's acting was pretty stellar. And in comparison, I thought Jason Patric's Michael was a little weak. I wanted to have more empathy with him and his decisions. Dianne Wiest was really solid (and way cuter than I remember from when I was a kid and she just looked like a mom). And Kiefer is the one who really sold the vampires. He was scary AF all the time. The rest of the bloodsuckers would have been cartoonish if not for Keifer's performance keeping them grounded.

And the balance between scary and funny is a delicate one here. Vampires vs. the Bronx from 2020 tried hard to duplicate the magic, and it came so close but failed to provide enough genuine scares.
.

[Mike]

Oh yeah... and best final line to any movie ever. I remember that shit from the theaters. Scary-ass final scene. Grandpa drives through a wall for no reason and saves the day. Then he starts acting all mysterious and I remember being worried that Grandpa was secretly a vampire, and that was blood he was drinking... but no. This is all to end it on a punchline, and all that creepy tension is released. Incredibly effective.