The Lost Boys

I've been meaning to watch this movie for a long time. It comes up in conversation fairly frequently, so it has usually been near the top of my list. I remember around when this movie came out, seeing it in the video store and all, and it looked scary, of course. It looked like the kind of thing I had no business watching, and certainly wouldn't have gone over well at home.

But look at it now. It has the two Corey's in it, as well as Kiefer Sutherland. And of course Jason Patric. Plus the idea of a group of teenage vampires has a certain appeal all its own. Of course I'll never know how this movie "holds up" over time, since I never saw it until more than twenty years after its release. But how well did it live up to my impression of it?

Wikipedia describes The Lost Boys as a "horror" movie, while IMDb lists "comedy, fantasy, horror, thriller" under genre. The horror tag always places my expectations at a certain level, typically making me look for something with some edge. Typically this is not the case. Because I didn't watch horror movies when I was younger I usually don't have the right impression of the genre. Even with that in mind, though, I think The Lost Boys is better described by IMDb's genre listings, with emphasis on the "comedy".

I'd like to state here that I did enjoy the movie, and thought it was pretty good. But there was far too much lighthearted comedy, mostly between Corey Haim and the two comic book kids (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander). Their exchanges were funny, and when I was 12 they probably wouldn't have taken any of the awesomeness out of this movie. But now if you add the grandfathers weird aged hippiness to the equation it definitely makes the picture lean toward the comical side.

All in all it's interesting for me to watch a movie like The Lost Boys now. I get a sense like I've just been away for a week and now that I've returned someone has told me a new joke, but all my friends have already heard it and been telling it, and have put their own twists on it. And I'm unable to catch up so I basically smile and nod. I get why the movie was good, I'm just not sure I'll ever understand its "awesomeness".