Saturday, May 29, 2010

Joel Schumacher's THE LOST BOYS (Contemporary American Revival)

Music Box - Friday and Saturday, Midnight
In addition to being the first movie where Corey Feldman and Corey Haim (R.I.P.) appear together, THE LOST BOYS is also a darn good time. In a rarity for a horror film from the '80's, the comedic elements work to lighten the mood without bringing too much cheese. Much as with Schumacher's previous movie targeted towards teenagers, ST. ELMO'S FIRE, the production team doesn't cut corners. Recently pubescent vampires (Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Jami Gertz) and soon-to-be pubescent comic store geeks (Haim and Feldman) get the adult treatment as realistic characters, without a comic foil in the bunch. Though the film was shot in and around Santa Cruz, the fictional location of San Carla, CA, is adeptly rendered as a dark and downtrodden small town, and feels like it could exist on the edge of the Salton Sea. With it's run-down boardwalk, gang problems, and mysterious disappearances, this is not the "Sunny California" that was (and is?) a staple of the movies. Though the film lags a bit during the third act, the night-time scenes of the amusement park and the vampires' lair are dead on, and the soundtrack features an excellent cover of "People are Strange" performed by Echo and the Bunnymen. (1987, 97 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

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