The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys follows single mother Lucy Emerson (Dianne Wiest) as she moves to a sleepy coastal town with her two sons, Sam (Corey Haim) and Michael (Jason Patric), and immediately sets out to integrate her small family into the local community. And while Sam quickly befriends a goofy pair of comic-book denizens (Corey Feldman’s Edgar and Jamison Newlander’s Alan), Michael, in pursuing a local beauty (Jami Gertz’s Star), falls in with a group of mysterious teenagers and immediately clashes with their enigmatic leader (Kiefer Sutherland’s David). It is, of course, not long before Michael makes the shocking discovery that David and his gang are, in fact, vampires, with the movie subsequently detailing David’s efforts at adapting to his decidedly unconventional new way of life. Director Joel Schumacher has infused The Lost Boys with a slick sensibility that proves effective at highlighting its ’80s origins, with the film’s proliferation of dated elements – eg the shirtless, greased-up saxophone player – contributing heavily to its atmosphere of kitschy nostalgia. And while it’s impossible not to get a kick out of the various familiar faces within the cast, Schumacher’s decision to employ an almost incongruously deliberate pace ensures that the movie never quite becomes the engrossing, consistently watchable endeavor one might’ve expected – with the lack of momentum exacerbated by Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam’s excessively episodic screenplay (ie too much of The Lost Boys revolves around Michael’s uneventful exploits). The over-the-top climax admittedly does resuscitate the viewer’s dwindling interest, and it is, finally, impossible to label the movie as anything more than a passable yet unspectacular relic of the 1980s.

**1/2 out of ****