Lost Boys

The year was 1987. Ronald Reagan was getting ready for his last year as American President. I was getting ready to start my 8th grade year of junior high school. Days of Our Lives fans tuned in daily to see if Patch and Kayla would ever get together despite Patch's interfering brother, Jack. And all across the country, thirteen year old girls were lusting after a boy named Corey.

Any boy named Corey.

Or so it seemed.

Corey Haim (the cute one) and Corey Feldman (the dangerous one) were the 80s movie star variants of today's Justin Timberlake and A.J. McLean. It's easy to chart the progress of a teen pop explosion. From Elizabeth Taylor to Bobby Blake to Jermaine Jackson to Marie Osmond to Gary Coleman to Molly Ringwold to Donny Wahlberg to Debbie Gibson to the Feldmans, Haims, Timberlakes, McLeans, Auglieras and Spears of the world. Predicting the rise and fall of a bubblegum pop superstar is more accurate than carbon-13 dating. But while you got it, you might as well milk it.

Corey and Corey were everywhere. They were in the movies, they were on the cover of Tiger Beat, and they were? umm? in the movies and on the cover of Tiger Beat. But what more do you need? When staring in films like License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream can net you the opportunity to make out with the likes of a teenaged Heather Graham and Meredith Salenger as well support your burgeoning cocaine and heroin habits; well, let's just say you don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. Let your star burn brightly, little man? for too soon it may burn out.

Today, the names Haim and Feldman rhyme with Culkin and Bonaduce, but in their time they brought us a number of very memorable films. Just off the top of my head I can think of? 3? three memorable films that they starred in together. First among these films is the one that made them stars. The one that put the name Corey on the lips of young girls whose sexuality was just awakening nationwide. The one that helped to inspire a youth movement. The one that made me actually believe that Joel Shumacher might be able to handle directing Batman. The one known as The Lost Boys.

Admit it, you had that awkward point in your life. Sure, you're past it now. But you had it. You were sixteen. You needed people to like you. You needed to be popular. But you knew they all hated you. You knew they laughed at you behind your back. You had to make them stop. You had no choice. You had to become cool. How do you become cool? Well, that's easy, you change the way you dress. But what to change to? The wrong decision, and you might be horribly uncool. That sort of thing could follow you for ever. Maybe even all the way to junior year. gasp!

If you were born before 1971 or so, you probably had to copy someone that you are now deathly ashamed of. Perhaps you, like Corey Haim's (the cute one) Sam in this film decided to go the Don Johnson route. You wore vibrant colored shirts, pleated pants, and maybe a tweed jacket. Your hair had so much mousse in it, it could stop a bullet. You were cool, dammit! You were Sonny Crockett.

Or maybe you were more like Corey Feldman's (the dangerous one) Edgar. You put on some camouflage combat fatigues. You grew your hair long and tied a headband around it. You carried a knife, grimaced a lot and tried your best not to break out laughing at your own ludicrousness. You were cool, dammit! You were Rambo.

No matter which route you took, when you take your girlfriend, wife or God forbid, the kids home to see your mother, she still to this day pulls out those pictures to show off. She's knows that they are embarrassing. But she's your mother. She was in labor for 19 hours just so that you could walk this earth and give her nothing but 18 years of grief. She hates you and you must suffer. Everyone looks at the pictures and they laugh at you. You could just die.

Me, I was lucky. I was born in 1974. It was 1990 before I became 16 and awkward. By that time, it was pretty clear what I had to wear to be cool. All black. Head to toe. I fit in everywhere. I was Goth, and at the same time I was Hip-Hop. I was formal and still casual. I was cool. I thank The Lost Boys.

Haim stars as a kid who moves to California from Arizona with his mother (Dianne West) and his brother (Brat Packer, Jason Patric) to discover that his new town is overrun by vampire teens. Feldman works in the neighborhood comic shop with his own brother (Jamison Newlander) and the three (the two Coreys and Jamison) team up to rid the town of the undead menace. The cast is rounded out by veteran character actor, Bernard Hughes who plays Patric and Haim's eccentric grandfather.

Brat Pack superstar, Kiefer Sutherland stars as one of the vampires alongside Alex Minter (better known as Bill S. Preston, Esquire) and two other actors (Brooke McCarter and Billy Wirth) neither of whom amounted to anything more important than this film. Jami Gertz (who was kind of a minor Brat Pack associate) stars as Patric's love interest.

Given the teen oriented thriller aspects of the film, it holds up incredibly well in my year 2001 viewing. The special effects remain respectable, the story is still respectable (if a little predictable) and the acting is about on par with what you might expect. Sutherland and Patric in particular have stellar performances and Haim and Gertz aren't too far behind. Only Feldman and Newlander actually come across as a little forced, but that is somewhat to be expected given the unlikely nature of their characters, the Frog brothers, two over-the-top would be teenaged would-be vampire hunters who have read too many comic books. The characters are mostly used as comic relief.

Perhaps most memorable about the film is its soundtrack featuring the likes of INXS, Run DMC, Elton John and Echo and the Bunnymen. This film presents a marvelous, almost textbook example of the power that music can add to a motion picture, as the songs are perfectly matched to enhance the mood of the film from scene to scene. Perhaps most memorable is the song "Cry Little Sister" by Gerard McMann, which serves as the main theme to the movie.

I will not Lie, little sister
Thou shall not fall
Come, come to your brother
Thou shall not die
Unchain me sister
Thou shall not fear
Love is with your brother
Thou shall not kill

The words echo through the film. Thou shall not fall. They are serene. Thou shall not die. Sung by a choir of little girls. Thou shall not fear. Peaceful. Thou shall not kill. Almost religious. They evoke a mood that stays with you long after the film has ended.

The timeless music, above average special effects and extremely tolerable story and acting make this something more than a flash in the pan teen summer blockbuster. The Lost Boys became a cult classic. It was ahead of its time. Along with a resurgent interest in the works of Anne Rice and the production other similar films (like the remakes of the Dracula and Nosferatu) helped not only to bring favor and interest in the phenomenon of Vampiric Legend (allowing for the rise of the White Wolf role playing games and countless occult oriented films of the 90s) but it also helped to jumpstart the Goth movement in America. So the next time you're on a bus or riding the subway and you see some 17 year old punk in pale make-up and ripped black clothing with his hair dyed jet black and 87 piercings coming out of his face, let him know that he has Corey Haim and Corey Feldman to thank for his look. Otherwise, he could be walking around in a pink stretch muscle shirt and a white tweed jacket. Maybe he'll thank you for it.

You know? if Kiefer Sutherland offered me a lifetime of immortal sex with Jami Gertz, I don't think I'd have to think twice.

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This review is the final of my 3 part entry into the Elevdado 80s write-off. Please visit the other entrants in the writeoff: 29th_Candidate, ainsleyjo, Bijou, bluehawq, brotherman, Caleo, DavidK93, elvisdo, Fez_Monkey, ggrimes1221, levda, mattjoe, orator, Phineaskc, repulsemonkey, rfr, dustygold and st3on1ey1baby.

The rules of the write-off stated that there would have to be six degrees of separation (kevin bacon) style links between all three entries. I did all three of them in 5 steps total. It would be kind of boring to just give that away though. So instead, I'm not going to say for a couple of days. So, feel free to guess in my comments section and check back here sometime after Monday night, and I'll post the answer there.

(UPDATE: The answers are now in the comments section)


For details about the WO and the official rules, see the official Elevdado homepage at http://www.geocities.com/elevdado/.