The Lost Boys 1987 720P

The Lost Boys (1987)
op did not write the following review
The Lost Boys is probably my favorite vampire movie of all time, if I’m being honest with myself. It’s certainly the one I’ve seen the most over the years, ever since that wonderful first late-night TV viewing as a child still young enough to be a bit disturbed by the over-the-top bloodletting in its third act, and more than a bit gleeful at getting away with watching what I perceived as a real hardcore, dangerous horror movie. As an adult I realize it is closer to The Goonies with Vampires than a really hardcore, dangerous horror movie, but I love it nonetheless for that.

Even things about the movie that invite criticism are pluses to me, like the wonderfully goofy dialogue (especially the one-liners of younger brother Sam, a “fashion victim” teen who apparently has Bruce Vilanch on his writing staff) and the way it plays fast and loose with the rules of vampire lore (inviting a vampire in is not only required but also makes the vamp impervious to garlic, holy water, being invisible in mirrors, etc.), not to mention basic physics. For example, remember how you need a hammer to drive a stake through a vampire’s heart in, like, every other vampire movie? Nah. Corey Feldman, one hand, one shot, all the way through the other side. Farewell, Bill Preston, Esq. Likewise, an arrow fired by the mighty Corey Haim is enough to launch bloodsucker Dwayne (Billy Wirth) off his feet and halfway across the room to his iconic “death by stereo.”

Firstly, The Lost Boys strikes me as pretty gay even for a vampire movie, which is already a notoriously campy, melodramatic, and generally fabulous subgenre. It may not be as steamy as Interview with the Vampire, but it’s a lot closer to that end of the spectrum than, say, From Dusk Till Dawn, a fiercely heterosexual vampire movie that is another longtime seasonal favorite of mine. You can tell just how gay The Lost Boys leans less than a minute in, when this title appears onscreen: “A Joel Schumacher Film.” This is the guy who would put nipples on the batsuit a decade later, after all.

But seriously, folks, Tim Cappello (the famous Oily Saxophone Beefcake playing on the boardwalk when Michael first glimpses Star) is merely the most obviously homoerotic element of this movie. He is probably the most prominent non-porn image you would find if you were to Google “lost boys gay,” but I’m not going to check because I can only imagine how many non-non-porn results I’d get, and I’m trying to finish writing this review today. Even as a child falling in love with this movie for the first time in the 90s, it didn’t take me long to realize Sam (Haim) is the gayest teen in an 80’s horror movie since Jesse in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. The first thing that tipped me off about this flamboyantly dressed, MTV-obsessed, bubble-bath-taking city boy was the big sexy Rob Lowe poster on his closet door; much like my previous observation about Freddy’s Revenge, the production design team knew Sam was gay even if no one else did.

To be fair, Sam does have a poster of Molly Ringwald on the opposite wall, but that one is a tasteful medium shot from The Breakfast Club, while the Rob Lowe poster is clearly a beefcake photo, complete with exposed midriff and smoldering gaze. One imagines the Ringwald poster is what Sam aspires to (oh, to be a pouty rich girl, so popular the school would probably shut down if she didn’t show up… sigh), and the Lowe poster is what he jacks to.

Sam mocks Michael (Jason Patric) for being at the mercy of his sex glands when he chases after a girl (something Sam will never do) before getting cruised by the Frog brothers in the comic book store where they meet. Edgar (Feldman) and Alan (Jamison Newlander) check out the ostentatious newcomer as he peacocks for them to the tune of “Laying Down the Law” by INXS (the lyrics on the soundtrack at this exact moment: “Just a whiff of corruption / The tip of the iceberg”). It’s quite the meet-cute, as Sam proves his comic book fan bonafides and gets a flirty sneer from Alan and a sexy nickname (Mr. Phoenix) from Edgar.

Even a superficial glance at the movie would undoubtedly single out the bubble bath scene as one of the gayest elements (though trailing far behind Oily Saxophone Beefcake, of course), as Sam sings along to the falsetto lyrics of “Ain’t Got No Home”: “I ain’t got a man… I’m a lonely girl….” Gay is different from homoerotic, though, and far greater than the sexual tension between Sam and the Frog Brothers in their first scene together, and certainly greater than the passion between Michael and Star, is the love that dare not speak its name shared by Michael and David (Kiefer Sutherland), which is the true John Matrix/Bennett 80s Action homoerotic antagonism at the heart of The Lost Boys.