Bounding Into Halloween Night 15: Old-School Vampires That Don’t Sparkle In ‘The Lost Boys’ & ‘Near Dark’
After the last two nights, it’s time for a palate cleanser, wouldn’t you agree? These two drops of red nostalgia are about those bloodsucking creatures of the night that unleash plagues of death upon whatever streets they dwell. They come in all walks of life (for lack of a better word) from brat packs to nomadic redneck outlaws.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Now, let’s head back to 1987 for a couple of bites. And here it is, folks! This biggest and tastiest bite is the one teen vampire movie that ironically doesn’t suck, but that people also never shut up about.
The rest only recognize the name from that meme with the theater marquee from 1987 which lists a bunch of great movies that came out that year, and it asks the reader which movie they’re seeing first (RoboCop, hands down!).
Down the list, there’s this fang-banger from director Joel Schumacher (Flatliners, Falling Down, and of course Bat Nips), The Lost Boys.
Mopey teen Michael Emerson (Jason Patric) and his younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) are forced to move to Santa Carla, California, with their mother, Lucy (Dianne Wiest).
After splitting up with their father, she moves the fractured family in with her dad (Barnard Hughes) in his eccentric abode just outside this West Coast town dubbed the murder capital of the world, but don’t let that deter anyone from visiting.
Santa Carla also boasts a local boardwalk where a number of young people hang out, including girls that at least look around Michael’s age (Jami Gertz), their freaky little Eddie Munster companions (Chance Michael Corbitt), and a group of young cycle enthusiasts (Brooke McCarter, Billy Wirth, and Alex “Bill S. Preston Esq.” Winter) who are led by David (Keifer Sutherland).
While Michael is distracted by his new friends, Sam makes the acquaintance of two comic book nerd siblings (Corey Haim, and Jamison Newlander) and Lucy is swept off her feet by a new guy named (Max Edward Herrmann) along with his adorable doggo, Thorn. Yes, friends, Santa Carla is certainly the ideal place to start a whole new life, but if there’s one thing that’s hard to stomach, it’s all the damn vampires!
Once you get past the “teen heartthrob” nonsense, this is a grim story that doesn’t have a happy ending, and it provides yet another reason not to live in that state. The one-liners in this movie will either seem dated, or they will never get old.
The Lost Boys also has blood, it has guts, it even has “death by stereo,” but most importantly…it has Saxophone Guy. Rent this 80s get over on Prime, but sink your fangs into the trailer first.
Alright, enough of that teeny-bopping proto-Twilight drivel. Let’s get to a real vampire romance!
Near Dark (1987)
This next bloody piece of strigoi cinema wasn’t that well-known for many years after its release, only to be discovered by video rental rats, and/or anyone lucky enough to catch it on premium cable at 1 a.m. in the early 90s.
This is the sophomore effort from burgeoning badass director Kathyrn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days, The Hurt Locker), and this came out at a time when vampires were popular again in Hollywood (e.g., the previous movie which came out the previous year). Instead of echoing what her contemporaries were doing with the nocturnal specters,
Bigelow went in a different direction with Near Dark. She kidnapped three actors from the movie Aliens (which her future ex-husband, James Cameron, had just finished filming), got Tangerine Dream to do the music, and made the best vampire movie of the decade.
Young cowboy, Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar), is a good kid from a small town in Oklahoma (or is it in Arizona…or the Midwest…???). Either way, he meets a beautiful blonde in town late one night who goes by Mae (Jenny Wright), and she asks for a ride back to her trailer. He decides to take the long way and show Mae a fun night which includes meeting a very skittish horse that doesn’t seem to like Mae very much and flees from her petite presence.
Dawn approaches, and she grows more frantic to get home, but Caleb insists that she kisses him goodnight first. This turns into a full-blown make-out session that ends with Mae giving him the mother of all hickeys. She bolts out of the car towards her place, and he drives home as the sun comes over the horizon, but there seems to be a problem. The sunlight is burning his flesh!
Caleb’s dad and sister watch while he does the “smokey sunlight dance” towards the house. They continue watching as he’s intercepted by a tinted RV that rolls up from behind, and this is when Caleb meets Mae’s trailer park family.
That would be old man Jesse (the legend, Lance Henriksen), his older old lady Diamondback (Jenette “Private Vasquez” Goldstein), wild bronco Severen (late/great Bill Paxton), and that youngin o’er yonder is Homer (Joshua John Miller). They nab Caleb because he’s of the family now, and he has to prove that he has what it takes to ride the nighttime road, or he dies. What choice will Caleb make?
Part Horror and part Southern Gothic, this movie doesn’t fit the mold of the usual brooding vampire romance, and it goes harder into the horror element. It’s well made, very well shot, and everyone fits their role. As said before, this movie spent a long time as a diamond caught in a rough patch of obscurity, and buried beneath the deluge of vamp romps that make for a cheesier date night.
If this movie gives anyone flashbacks of someone they dated who dragged them into the crazy world of their mobile home family life, don’t worry. It’s not just you. For everyone else, Near Dark is hard as hell to find anywhere, but there are places for those desperate enough – or just watch the trailer.
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