This is part of my ongoing attempts to destroy my childhood films. I used to watch this all the time when I was growing up. This film, Robocop, Die Hard, Commando, Dark Angel, and Speed were my cinematic bread and butter up until I was about twelve.
I hadn't actually revisited it for almost a decade and I finally got a chance to see it again a few nights ago at a 'Sing-Along' showing at my local cinema. Even seeing the film with a bunch of drunken students singing along to Cry Little Sister and Lost In The Shadows didn't deter me from the film, in fact it probably made the film better.
What I remembered about the film was very particular. I remember stuff like the rules for vampires, the sequence where Michael gets tricked into becoming a vamp, and inexplicably a gigantic greasy guy playing the saxophone. These are all pretty major parts of the film, seriously the greasy guy is on screen for like five minutes, but what I liked more than anything else were the 'smaller' moments.
The Lost Boys is a film that is never quiet, but there are moments which feel quiet in comparison to the excess everywhere else. Before I'd always found the build up to be rather boring, but in my view the opening forty minutes are probably the most effective for me now. There's a weird uneasiness about the first act which is really well handled and despite the 'of its timeness' of most of the film there's a certain classical element to the 'fish out of water in a town with a strange secret' aspect of the start.
The Lost Boys is probably not a good movie, but I find myself in a rather unusual place where I actually can't look at its faults. I just love the film unabashedly and I think a lot of that has to do with my childhood interactions with the material, it's bizarre to be nostalgic about a vampire movie. But there you go.
I hadn't actually revisited it for almost a decade and I finally got a chance to see it again a few nights ago at a 'Sing-Along' showing at my local cinema. Even seeing the film with a bunch of drunken students singing along to Cry Little Sister and Lost In The Shadows didn't deter me from the film, in fact it probably made the film better.
What I remembered about the film was very particular. I remember stuff like the rules for vampires, the sequence where Michael gets tricked into becoming a vamp, and inexplicably a gigantic greasy guy playing the saxophone. These are all pretty major parts of the film, seriously the greasy guy is on screen for like five minutes, but what I liked more than anything else were the 'smaller' moments.
The Lost Boys is a film that is never quiet, but there are moments which feel quiet in comparison to the excess everywhere else. Before I'd always found the build up to be rather boring, but in my view the opening forty minutes are probably the most effective for me now. There's a weird uneasiness about the first act which is really well handled and despite the 'of its timeness' of most of the film there's a certain classical element to the 'fish out of water in a town with a strange secret' aspect of the start.
The Lost Boys is probably not a good movie, but I find myself in a rather unusual place where I actually can't look at its faults. I just love the film unabashedly and I think a lot of that has to do with my childhood interactions with the material, it's bizarre to be nostalgic about a vampire movie. But there you go.
