Day 340: The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys

Not pictured: Starter jackets, LA Gear sneakers, and Jersey hair

Teen vampire movies weren't always relegated to crappy romance novel adaptations where people swoon over brooding bloodsuckers that sparkle in the sunlight and have strong religious overtones. In fact, the 1980's were full of vampire movies. We had Fright Night, the Jim Carey-starring Once Bitten, My Best Friend Is A Vampire, Lifeforce, and Near Dark. These weren't just one-note vampire movies either. Some were comedies, some were action/adventures, some were straight horror. There was one vampire movie from the 80's, though, that manage to touch on many different genres while encapsulating the very essence of the 1980's. That movie is The Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys is a 1987 teen vampire movie starring Corey Haim (License To Drive, Lucas) as Sam Emerson and Jason Patric (Sleepers, Narc) as his older brother Michael. Along with their mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest, Edward Scissorhands, Bullets Over Broadway), the boys move to Santa Clara, the supposed murder capital of the world, to live with their grandfather. Michael and Sam hang out on the boardwalk when Michael spots a beautiful girl named Star (Jami Gertz, Less Than Zero, Sixteen Candles) and pursues her. She runs with a gang lead by the mysterious vampire David (Kiefer Sutherland, 24, Mirrors). Wanting to stay with Star, Michael goes along with David as the gang initiates him through various dares and challengers. Michael drinks from a bottle containing blood, thus beginning his transformation. Meanwhile, Sam visits a comic book store where he meets Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman, The Goonies, Stand By Me) and his brother Alan (Jamison Newlander, The Blob, Lost Boys: The Tribe). They insist that Sam read a comic called “Vampires Everywhere!”, warning him that it could save his life. The next day, Michael develops a thirst for blood and is sensitive to sunlight. He is even attacked by Sam's normally docile dog Nanook. After retreating to his room, Michael begins to levitate and fly against his will, terrifying Sam and prompting Lucy to come home from her date with Max (Edward Herrmann, Gilmore Girls, The Aviator). Sam discovers that his brother is only half-vampire and his humanity could still be restored by killing the head vampire. Sam and the Frog brothers believe that Max is the head vampire and put him through various tests made to look like accidents. He passes them though, leaving the boys without a clue as to who the head vampire may be. After an incident where the vampires kill some surfers, Star visits Michael, revealing that she too is half-vampire and that she wants to be cured as well. They all travel to the vampire's hideout and stake one vampire (Alex Winters, Bill from Bill & Ted's Excellent Journey) but must flee when the rest wake up. That night, the teens arm themselves with weapons to fight against the vampires. Who is the head vampire and will Sam be able to free his brother before it is too late?

"What? I can't hear you over that hideous shirt!"

If aliens ever came to our planet and wanted to know what the 1980's were all about, you'd show them The Lost Boys (or maybe Mannequin if you were feeling mean). The culture, the clothes, the mullets, the music. All that was really missing was Hulk Hogan and some power suits with shoulder pads. It's all so very 80's and I mean that in a good way. While the movie is geared towards teens and horror fans, the story is quite entertaining. It mixes action, adventure, teen angst, and comedy without ever really losing it's horror edge. Granted, it's still teen-friendly, but that's just a movie knowing it's audience. The movie focuses on both Michael and Sam, giving the movie a wider range of teen and young adult fans. There are some scares and some blood, but not enough to keep the average non-horror fan away. The humor isn't overpowering, but it lightens the mood when necessary.

The movie's visual style is quite striking with beautiful sweeping shots of the ocean combined with a soaring musical score. The Lost Boys proves that Joel Schumacher, the man who directed such stinkers as The Number 23, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin) can actually direct. The action is decent and thanks to some prosthetics and color contacts, the vampires don't look half bad. The movie is helped greatly by the good performances from Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric and the two Coreys. While most modern audiences are used to the badass Jack Bower Kiefer Sutherland, it's nice to see him play a villain so well. He plays the vampire David with a sly, dangerous edge, like he's the cool older kid in high school that wears a leather jacket and hangs outside during lunch. Corey Haim is good as the younger brother, serving as a solid avatar for the audience. The ending is a bit of a blow-off, but in that special 80's way where everything is perfectly fine.

We call that "Cold Toilet" face

The Lost Boys has found a wide audience and thanks to a high nostalgia factor, two sequels have come out in recent years. It's one of the quintessential teenage movies from the 80's along with The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's a fun little story that combines a lot of different genres with relatable teenage angst. The undercurrent story of teens moving to a new place, falling into the wrong crowd, and their mother dating is all a clever parallel to the problems that many in the audience face. The movie has some good action, but it may not be enough for true horror fans. The acting is good and it's fun to see all the wonderful things from the 1980's. Whether you're feeling nostalgic or just need a fun, relatively harmless horror movie, The Lost Boys is worth the watch.

8/10

Day 262: Mirrors

Mirrors

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the Kieferiest of them all?

Using a mirror in a horror movie is one of the oldest tricks in the book. They're always good for a quick scare and fun special effect. Some say that mirrors are a window into the soul. Personally, I think they're just a shiny surface that occasionally get covered in toothpaste when you don't close your mouth during brushing. Either way, the mirror is a useful horror tool, whether it was in Prince Of Darkness or A Nightmare On Elm Street or Stir of Echoes or The Ring. One can even say that the use of mirrors in horror is a cliché. Would an entire horror movie based on mirrors fit or break the mold?

Mirrors is a 2008 horror movie, based off ideas from the South Korean movie Into The Mirror, starring Kiefer Sutherland (24, Phone Booth) as former NYPD Detective Ben Carson. After an accidental shooting, Ben was suspended from the police force and fell into a downward spiral of alcohol and depression. His wife Amy (Paula Patton, Precious, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) left him and tries to limit his visits with their children Daisy and Michael. Ben is reduced to living in an apartment with his sister, Angela (Amy Smart, Road Trip, Crank) and has to take a job as a night security guard. His post is at Mayflower, a luxury department store that was gutted by a fire which killed many people. Unknown to Ben, the previous guard, Gary Lewis, was killed by supernatural means after his own reflection cut his throat. On his first night of guard duty, Ben sees all the mirrors in the building covered with hand prints, but the prints are on the reflected side of the glass facing out. Over time, he begins to see and feel visions of people on fire and begging for help. Ben actually receives a package sent from Gary, the now dead guard, with newspaper clippings about the fire and how a previous guard murdered his family, blaming their deaths on something in mirrors. As Ben begins to research the incident, Angela is viciously killed when her reflection rips pulls her jaw apart. In a fit of rage, Ben tries to break the mirrors in Mayflower, but they cannot be damaged. He asks the mirror what is wants and the name “Esseker” appears on the mirror's surface. By using his detective skills, Ben discovers that the department store was built on top of St. Matthews Hospital which housed a room full over mirrors used to treat mental patients. The name Esseker belonged to a young schizophrenic patient named Anna Esseker who had escaped a mass suicide at the hospital before it closed. Ben is able to find Anna who has since become a nun. She explains that she was not schizophrenic, but had some sort of demon inside her that escaped into the mirrors. With his family in terrible danger, with Ben and Anna be able to stop the mirrors in time?

And you think you had a bad day

I don't know if I've ever seen another movie that started out so strong and ended with such a thud. The first twenty-five or so minutes of Mirrors is a great mixture of suspense, mystery, and horror. The story is set up properly, giving us a bit of action in the very beginning and then filling in all the details of Ben's personal life. His story plays out like the typical “fired cop” character, complete with alcohol problem and shattered family life. It's so clichéd that I half-expected him to report to an irate chief and work with a partner that's “too old for this shit”. The beginning of the movie has a great horror atmosphere with the burned-out department store as the perfect setting. Everything is broken and burnt except for the immaculate mirrors. The special effects used to show the spirits in the department store look very good and Amy Smart's death scene is incredibly violent and disturbing. The inclusion of the evil being able to reach his loved ones was quite smart as it forced Ben to solve the problem. Many horror movies are lazy and keep characters in a haunted spot with no good reason not to leave. It's when the movie is taken out of the department store that things begin to fall apart.

The movie focuses too much on uncovering the mystery and gets far too complicated for it's own good. The addition of the hospital, a demon and Anna Esseker takes the story into a strange and unnecessary direction. One would think that the spirits (or demon, whatever it is) inside the mirrors were trapped souls looking for some measure of peace or something along those lines. It's far easier and entertaining to just have Ben looking for the real culprit of the fire than sending him on a wild goose chase. The department store was such a good setting that taking him out of it takes away from the horror of the movie. It doesn't help that the movie spends a good 20 minutes focused on Amy trying to save her kids while Ben tries to convince Anna to help him. These scenes just drag on for way too long and force the movie into a run-time of 111 minutes. That's unnecessary and it brings down the entire movie. Kiefer Sutherland is good, channeling a healthy dose of his Jack Bauer character from 24. Paula Patton does well enough, but like a lot of horror movies, the children are just too annoying for me to handle. Director Alexandre Aja (Piranha, The Hills Have Eyes) has some good moments, but doesn't get the most out of what should have been easy scares.

"I'm sorry, I got lost in my handsomness for a second."

Mirrors is a convoluted story that fizzled far quicker than it should have. What started out as a promising and fun horror movie became a complicated and boring supernatural mystery that was neither exciting nor thrilling. There are a few good scenes of violence and gore, but not enough to sustain the extra long run-time. It makes you wonder, if they're capable of showing extreme violence, why only settle for one or two scenes? The acting is decent and certainly helps make the movie more tolerable than if it were done by less-skilled actors. It's a shame that the movie turned out the way it did, because it really had a lot of potential, but potential can only take you so far.

4.5/10