Lost Boys: The Thirst. Dario Piana. 2010. ⚃

Uh-oh. Well, the previous movie was 4.5, and that was a fun movie… so this is probably a more serious movie? And perhaps actually bad?

Let’s see.

[twenty minutes pass]

OK, this isn’t a “good movie”…

The previous movie was a retread of the first movie, but even funnier. This is … hm… I don’t know what this is. It’s got both of the Frog brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), and they’re the protagonists here, instead of being funny side-kicks (like Feldman was in the previous movie).

I like Feldman — he brings his all into making this funny (by playing it over-seriously), but as the central character? I’m not sure…

And Feldman’s hair looks so much like a wig that I’m wondering whether it’s his real hair, but with a bad hairdo? Because a wig can’t look that bad.

[ten minutes pass]

It’s funny… but there’s some scenes here that just don’t feel quite right. I think it’s an editing problem? It just doesn’t feel… musical? They scenes could have been slightly more snappier, and then it’d have been hilariou instead of amusing?

[fifteen minutes pass]

It’s so frustrating! This could almost have been a horror/comedy camp classic. The jokes are almost there… just a bit more work, and they could actually have landed. The movie does so much right… the 80s horror parody feel, and the non-ironic approach to everything… I almost feel guilty about not liking this more than I do.

It’s so great when Feldman pairs up with Casey B. Dolan — delivering up straight lines to each other continuously. But there needs to be more punchlines!

[the end]

This reminds me so much of fun 90s series like Xena: Warrior Princess and Cleopatra 2525 (the first season). It’s got the same kinda vibe. And so it’s totally out of step with what was popular in 2010, which was the New Era Of Quality TV (i.e, zzz), so I understand why there wasn’t another sequel. But I could watch a dozen of these. It’s easy, breezy, vampire slaying.

Take this with a grain or salt (or a shovel or two), but this is so much better than you’d expect.

Lost Boys: The Tribe. P.J. Pesce. 2008. ⚃

Uh-oh. I didn’t think the imdb scale went that low.

Anyway, I’m watching this because… it was included in the Lost Boys bluray package. It’s apparently a cheapie done without much of a connection to the original Schumacher classic? But Corey Feldman is supposed to do an appearance…

OK, now this sounds awesome. Let’s see!

[ten minutes pass]

I’m kinda enjoying this so far. The surfer-vamps-killing-the-1%-vamp was fun and surprising — it’s like they were expecting us to expect it, but then knowing that that’s what we were expecting, so it’s the opposite, but then they did the opposite of the opposite, so it’s… er… where was I… yes, I’ve mixed a batch of batida de mango indeed.

The only thing annoying so far is the cheapo early digital video they’re using. It looks great during the night scenes, but in the daytime scenes, everything that’s bright gets grainy and shimmery. In a bad way.

[twenty-five minutes pass]

Feldman showed up and tries to talk approx. two octaves below his natural register. “I am Batman I mean Edgar Frog.” The CGI sequences are sooo bad… even for a 2008 movie. But, like, it didn’t have much of a budget… perhaps they shouldn’t even have tried? The practical, cheap stuff looks fine and gross.

I’m still not understanding the “4.5” rating: I’ve seen so many movies that are a lot worse than this. This has engaging actors and a pretty amusing plot. Perhaps voting has been brigaded by old Lost Boys fanatics?

[the end]

It kinda lost the plot somewhere? I mean, I’m not quite sure where, because it seemed to be going somewhere? But suddenly it was all boring for quite a while.

Still! I kinda liked it? Feldman is so over-the-top that you (i.e., I) can’t help but smile, and it’s just generally kinda likeable? I mean, it’s not a “good movie”… but it’s fun. It’s like an 80s horror movie?

It’s silly. I like silly.

The Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher. 1987. ⚃

Does anybody remember reading an article in… like… The NME? In the late 80s? I remember the article was called something like “American Gothic”, and it was about these new, exciting movies coming from the US. It was movies like Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, and this one. I think? It’s a long time ago.

And when I read it I thought “yes! that’s such a thing!” Because I’d been watching these movies (on VHS) and I thought, too, that there was a connecting tissue, somehow, between these movies… something fresh, something punk, something exciting was happening in genre film in the US at the time.

I’ve tried to google the article, but that’s impossible, of course — nothing that happened before 1997 exists. Does anybody have a copy of that article? Because I bought the movies in question on blu-ray the other week, because I can’t really remember them at all now. Are they any good? And I wondered whether they mentioned any other films in that article…

Anyway!

Let’s start with The Lost Boys, because Schumacher died the other day.

[half an hour passes]

I had totally blanked on how much this was a mid-80s horror movie. It’s got that… look… where you can immediately tell. It’s not that far removed from, say, big-budget movies like Gremlins, really…

But I did remember correctly: It’s fresh and cheeky. And punk. Well, there’s a lot of punks in the background of the shots, at least.

It’s no immediately clear what’s even going on, even if the comic book geeks are talking about vampires…

I mean, even why the lost boys even want Michael is pretty obscure.

[half an hour passes]

As usual, I love Dianne Wiest… but it’s like she’s in a different movie from the other actors, and I’m not quite sure what they are going for. I can imagine Schumacher standing just off-camera shouting “BROADER! BIGGER! FUNNIER!” to the actors, because they’re totally not aiming for anything resembling naturalistic.

On the other hand, that does reflect the plot — her character is the one in the dark, while the others are living it up.

[the end]

Well, that wasn’t the movie I was expecting at all: It really is Gremlins, but with vampires instead.

But I like it. It’s fun.