THE LOST BOYS [1987] review

I may have only ever seen THE LOST BOYS once, long ago when it first came out.  In my memory it existed as this super cool 80s movie about teen vampires representing in California.  And that it was scary.  Most of those memories were, in fact, incorrect.  Or, the twenty years in-between have changed my perceptions of scary, cool and representing.

I was very surprised to see that LOST BOYS was directed by Joel Shumacher.  Who knew?  I was also surprised by how young both Corey Haim and Corey Feldman looked.  I thought by 1987 they’d be well into their teens, but in LOST BOYS they looked like, well, boys.  The biggest surprise, though, was the campiness of the movie instead of the scares and chills I was expecting.  There is a lot of comedy in this movie, and a cynical-jaded type might laugh with malice at it.  Fortunately, both Aya and I remain malice free and could enjoy all the campy laughs.  

Shumacher did manage some very nice camera shots, especially the effect of showing flying, which he was able to do, wisely, without showing bodies soaring threw the air, which would have looked fake.  The way he did it was a pretty cool and effective technique.  

If one is feeling nostalgia for the 80s, then one can’t go wrong giving THE LOST BOYS another watch, even though it may not exactly be scary anymore.

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