Before the "Twilight" film series, "Interview with a Vampire," and HBO's "True Blood," there was 1987's "The Lost Boys." Hollywood has always had a fascination with vampires but "The Lost Boys" is often credited with shifting pop culture depictions of vampires and bringing a more youthful appeal to the vampire genre. The film starred the who's who of '80s Hollywood stars from Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, and Alex Winter. The teen black comedy horror film was a commercial and critical success and even spawned two sequels. So, we've made a video that takes a deep dive into the untold truth of this Hollywood classic.
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00:00Believe it or not, The Lost Boys was originally supposed to be a more wholesome Peter Pan-inspired
00:05vampire movie.
00:06But following the success of St. Elmo's Fire, director Joel Schumacher turned the project
00:10into a sexy, gory, and politically subversive teenage classic that changed the way vampires
00:15would be portrayed in Hollywood for decades to come.
00:18While it still holds up as one of the better vampire films ever made, there's probably
00:22a lot you don't know about this cult classic.
00:25So grab your leather jacket, hold on to the rails, and check out the untold truth of The
00:29Lost Boys.
00:31Santa Carla
00:32You don't have to be from California to know that Santa Carla, the town where The Lost
00:36Boys takes place, doesn't actually exist.
00:39However, locals can easily recognize a Lost Boys location as the South Bay beach town
00:43Santa Cruz, thanks to shots of its giant dipper rollercoaster.
00:48Director Joel Schumacher fell in love with the locale as soon as he scouted it, telling
00:51the local news,
00:52"...the movie didn't come together until I saw Santa Cruz.
00:55At the time, there was an enormous amount of transient kids moving through Santa Cruz.
00:59This is exactly where I would come if I was a teenage vampire."
01:03After reversing a couple of letters in nearby Santa Clara, he even had a locally-inspired
01:07new name for his movie's dream spot.
01:09The cast enjoyed filming in the scenic beach town, too.
01:12Corey Feldman recalled,
01:13"...we had such a great time there.
01:14Being kids and having the opportunity to be at the boardwalk every day, getting to ride
01:18on the giant dipper and being at the beach.
01:20It was such a fun experience."
01:22However, securing Santa Cruz as the film's location wasn't all smooth sailing.
01:26The town's authorities were wary of the boardwalk being portrayed in a bad light, especially
01:30after 1983's violent sudden impact took them by surprise.
01:35Even worse, Santa Carla's title as the murder capital of the world wasn't fictional, as
01:39Santa Cruz earned that description after years of serial killings.
01:42But the authorities read the Lost Boys' script, loved it, and ended up giving Schumacher the
01:46green light, and the rest is pop culture history.
01:49The Goonies Gone Vampire
01:51The Lost Boys was initially skewed towards a much younger audience.
01:55The film's original script, written by Jan Fischer and James Jeremias, was intended to
01:59be, as the title suggests, a reimagining of Peter Pan with vampires.
02:04However, as Schumacher told The Telegraph, he thought it read too much like The Goonies
02:08Go Vampire, especially with Goonies director Richard Donner originally at the helm and
02:12Corey Feldman joining the cast.
02:14When Donner departed the project to direct Lethal Weapon, Schumacher gained control and
02:18took the Lost Boys from very wholesome to very campy.
02:21He explained,
02:22"'The Frog Brothers' were Boy Scouts.
02:24I thought, why can't they all be teenagers?
02:26Why can't they be dressed incredibly?
02:28And why can't they have stripped-down motorcycles that look skeletal?'
02:31Schumacher posed these questions to Warner Bros. president Mark Canton, who ultimately
02:35gave him permission to give the script a teenage makeover.
02:38Alex Winter, who played Marco, praised the changes, saying,
02:41"'I don't think I really connected with it until I got there and realized quite how deep
02:45Joel was going.
02:46He really got it cinematically and was taking it to this crazy place.'"
02:50Edgar Rambeau
02:52Thanks to his connection with Goonies director Richard Donner, Corey Feldman received an
02:55invitation to audition for the part of the Lost Boys' vampire-slaying Edgar Frog.
03:00But when he read through the script with Joel Schumacher, he got an interesting note.
03:04"'He was like, that was great, but could you maybe, um, butch it up a little bit?'
03:10Feldman says he was instructed to hit the video store and rent the movies of Sylvester
03:14Stallone and Chuck Norris, telling him,
03:16"'That is your character.
03:17I want you to meld all of these guys together and make something out of it.'"
03:22Feldman's portrayal of Edgar Frog certainly breathes some comedic life into the film,
03:26which is often pretty dark and serious.
03:29Of that, Feldman said,
03:30"'I think the fun part about the character and the comic value of it is that he doesn't
03:33think it's funny, and he's not in on the joke.
03:36So he's one of those people that you just kinda have to laugh at because, you know,
03:39they really take themselves very seriously, and they believe every word of what they're
03:43saying about themselves, or whatever it is they believe in.'"
03:47Challenging conventions
03:48The Lost Boys may be campy, but it also challenged certain common conventions about family life
03:53in America.
03:55The Atlantic argues that the movie arrived at a time when many Americans were fearful
03:59of a perceived disintegration of the traditional nuclear family structure.
04:03The Lost Boys challenged these notions by focusing on two non-traditional families,
04:07the Emersons and the vampire crew.
04:10As the good guys, the Emersons survive, and ultimately thrive, despite the mother being
04:14newly divorced, broke, and forced to move into her father's house with her two sons.
04:18When we meet Max, the one father-type character who could offer a traditional fix to the broken
04:22Emerson family, it turns out he's also a monster.
04:25Meanwhile, the film's other family is a bunch of dudes living, sleeping, partying, and killing
04:30together.
04:31Additionally, the film is also commonly analyzed as challenging conservative notions of sexuality,
04:37All at a time when the President of the United States was accused of ignoring the country's
04:40incredibly serious AIDS crisis.
04:43Today, much of The Lost Boys is commonly viewed as homoerotic.
04:46Santa Carla itself represents a place where people on the outskirts of society, such as
04:50homosexuals and vampires, can live openly.
04:53David and his crew of vampires dress in leather outfits not unlike those worn by members of
04:58the early 80s underground gay club scene, and new vampires must drink David's blood
05:02in an initiation ceremony.
05:04Adam's bedroom is decorated with a poster of Rob Lowe's abs.
05:07Michael, fearing his actions with David have led him down a deviant path, rushes off to
05:11have sex with Star, whom none of the other vampires seem particularly interested in.
05:16Schumacher himself even endorses these analyses, telling GamesRadar that The Lost Boys is,
05:22in a way, about the fear we have of the Other, those who live outside of the mainstream.
05:27All About Michael
05:28Anyone who's ever even passionately watched The Lost Boys has the name Michael permanently
05:33engraved in their memories of the movie.
05:35That's because the protagonist's name is uttered more than any other word in the entire film.
05:40Just how many times do we hear his name?
05:42Well over a hundred.
05:43"...Michael."
05:44"...Michael."
05:45"...Michael."
05:46"...Michael."
05:47"...Michael."
05:48"...Michael."
05:49"...Michael."
05:50"...Michael."
05:51Considering the film's runtime is only 97 minutes, that means viewers got at least one
05:52Michael mention a minute, which is a lot of name love for one half-vampire to receive.
05:57A Tale of Two Corys
05:59Child stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were a late-80s dynamic duo, appearing together
06:04in picks like License to Drive, Dream a Little Dream, and National Lampoon's Last Resort.
06:09But it was The Lost Boys that first paired the young actors who'd later be referred to
06:12as the Two Corys.
06:14"...We just click chemistry for ourselves and people, I guess, get in the wind of it.
06:19Like, wow, these two have something off-camera but on-camera."
06:23Unfortunately, a series of ill-advised personal and professional decisions derailed both Corys'
06:27careers, and their brief peak as teenage heartthrobs belied a slew of direct-to-video
06:32releases.
06:33Sadly, even their on-screen reunion on the short-lived reality show The Two Corys couldn't
06:37save Corey Haim, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 38.
06:42Ben Stiller, Lost Boy?
06:45Kiefer Sutherland's crew of leather-wearing teenage vampires with rock-and-roll haircuts
06:49almost included another up-and-comer we all know now.
06:52Ben Stiller has claimed that he was almost cast as one of the Lost Boys, telling a Hollywood
06:57crowd in 2010,
06:58"'Last time I saw a room full of so many talented faces was when I auditioned for the
07:02Lost Boys.
07:03It was between me and Kiefer and the Two Corys.'"
07:06He might have been joking, but the actor would have been 21 at the time of the production,
07:10which makes him the right age for one of the roles.
07:13It's also fairly easy to imagine the dark-haired Stiller wearing leather and riding a motorcycle
07:17alongside Sutherland and crew.
07:19Considering all the models that did make it into the cast, it's also easy to picture Zoolander's
07:24patented blue steel pose stacking up against Brooke McCarter's tough-guy smirk quite nicely.
07:30Stolen fiancé
07:32While filming The Lost Boys, Jason Patrick and Kiefer Sutherland became close friends.
07:37Four years later, however, Patrick was on an airplane to Ireland with Sutherland's ex-fiancé
07:41Julia Roberts, leading to some juicy tabloid drama.
07:44In 2016, Sutherland reflected on the headline-making breakup from years earlier.
07:49"...this wedding that was supposed to be something between the two of us became something
07:53so big.
07:54I think she had the courage, you know?
07:57It wasn't what she wanted to do in the end."
07:59Not long after her split with Sutherland, however, Roberts started dating Patrick.
08:03For his part, Patrick has since downplayed the whole love triangle ordeal, telling Vulture,
08:07"...everything that happened was all fake and bulls----, and let them give you quotes
08:11about whatever they want.
08:12Obviously, people are gonna ask.
08:14They had a relationship that ended and I was with her for a little while and it ended.
08:18They've both been subsequently married several times and I think they're fine, but we never
08:22had any issue, even back then."
08:24Indeed, to this day, Patrick claims he has maintained his friendship with Sutherland
08:28despite their brief romantic rivalry.
08:30"...it's just nice that all those years later I'm still very good friends with Jamie Girtz,
08:34very good friends with Kiefer, and it was a special time."
08:37Buffy the Vampire Stealer
08:39As one of the first teenage vampire films to feature some serious sex appeal, The Lost
08:43Boys inspired a whole new sub-genre of vampire stories, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
08:49Buffy creator Joss Whedon has gone on record to explain some of the ways his movie and
08:53resulting TV series took inspiration from the film.
08:56As Whedon told Salon back in 2003,
08:58"...the idea of vampires looking like monsters and then looking like people, that was in
09:03Lost Boys, and that was very useful for us."
09:06You could have somebody fool you, or someone like Angel seem like he's not a vampire, and
09:11then he is one.
09:12The series' second season introduced a character named Spike, a platinum blonde vampire played
09:16by James Marsters.
09:18Whedon credited The Lost Boys for the inspiration for the character, saying,
09:21"...there's a little Billy Idol, a little Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, and every guy
09:25in a black coat."
09:27Skip the sequels
09:28Although The Lost Boys lives on as a piece of cultural iconography, its sequels definitely
09:33failed to earn the same kind of hype.
09:35Why?
09:36Well, the first sequel took 20 years to happen, and even then, it was still a straight-to-DVD
09:40sort of deal, titled Lost Boys...The Tribe.
09:43The movie did bring back Corey Feldman as the only original cast member who made it
09:47into the final cut, and while it features plenty of vampires and topless women, it has
09:51almost nothing to do with the original film, leading critics to unanimously label it as
09:56little more than a cheap cash grab.
09:58It did manage to make back its production costs upon release, however, so Warner Bros.
10:02gave the go-ahead to another titled Lost Boys...The Thirst, featuring the reunion of Feldman and
10:06Jameson Newlander as the Frog Brothers.
10:08However, it was slaughtered by critics and sold half as many DVDs as the first sequel.
10:13So consider this one a Lost Boy in its own right.