The Lost Boys : The Goonies Featuring Erotic Vampires
There isn’t a single « mainstream » director out there that directs with so much visual sensuality than Joel Schumacher. Even his most reviled film, Batman and Robin (1997), exudes with so much homoeroticism and masculinity, that you can’t help but admire how Schumacher is unafraid of challenging viewers’ own sexual impulses by perverting Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O’Donnell)’s suit with uncomfortable zoom-ins of nipples & rear-ends. If anything, these shots weren’t for the public, but for Joel Schumacher himself, who claims to have had sex with over 20,000 men. His flair for the erotic is incredibly familiar and wonderfully exploited in his 1987 magnum opus, The Lost Boys, in which the Emerson family (Corey Haim, Jason Patric & Dianne Wiest) move to Lucy (Wiest)’s father (Barnard Hughes)’s house in Santa Clara, California. Everything seems to be going fine, until Michael (Patric) becomes attracted to a random woman named Star (Jami Gertz) and is stalked by a gang of vampires, with their leader, David (Kiefer Sutherland), manipulating Michael in drinking blood so he can begin his transformation as a vampire. When Sam (Haim) realizes that Michael is a vampire, he enlists the help of two “experts”, Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan (Jamison Newlander) Frog to kill the vampire leader which will make Michael (and all of David’s “followers”) go back to normal.
Schumacher’s direction for The Lost Boys is divided in two. On the first and second act, he fully embraces his own homosexual impulses and directs every sequence with erotic flair. The biggest example of that would probably the infamous “saxophone guy”, glistening with grease/sweat, shirtless, playing his instrument while thrusting his hips, not giving a damn about anyone else or anything that’s going on. Then, Star appears for the first time, introduced in slow-motion with lens flares complementing her “pure” nature, as Michael (and the audience) becomes immediately attracted to her. This entire scene is not only meant to arouse the viewer, but Schumacher as well as there’s literally no reason for the sax guy to be here but for his own pleasures. Michael’s emancipation/transformation as a vampire is also incredibly erotic, reminiscent of cult-like orgies, as he takes part in a blood ritual, unbeknownst to him that he’ll be transformed as a vampire. He starts “following the heard”, afterwards, accepted by a group of total “outcasts” (so he believes), following his impulses, living in the present moment. All of the vampires operate via some sort of sexual drive. Their desire for blood isn’t just mythic, as it is shown when Michael observes David’s gang viciously murdering a group of teenagers sitting near a fire, but it’s a pure lust for blood. Tasting human flesh, whilst drinking their blood has become, with David, an erotic ritual. Michael’s impulses soon become perverted (and corrupted) by a lust for blood. However, he doesn’t accept that lust and decides to free himself (and Star) from this corrupted sexuality. Sam comes to his aid, with the Frog Brothers.
This is where The Lost Boys decides to evolve from erotic horror/thriller, to a full-on comedy/adventure, à la The Goonies (1985, Richard Donner). It not only follows Richard Donner’s adventurous aesthetic and sharp, comedic, script from Chris Columbus, but can be interpreted as a companion piece in which Mouth (Feldman) was a vampire killer with his brother. Once Michael, Sam and The Frog Brothers go to David’s lair, the badassery quickly kicks-in and The Lost Boys delivers one hell of a satisfying climax. From the purely 80s one-liners (“Death by stereo”.) to the over-the-top, inherently schlocky one-by-one vampire kills, Joel Schumacher (and screenwriters Janice Fischer, Jeffrey Boam & James Jeremias) unlock their “inner child” to deliver a fantastical, incredibly imaginative climax. There is nothing more over-the-top than a last-minute kill from grandpa, who arrives with his truck and impales the vampire leader, revealed (shocker!) to be Max (Edward Hermann), the video-store owner (even if their suspicions were supposedly erroneous in the film’s funniest scene), with a wooden face post.
The Lost Boys isn’t just a “ridiculous” horror-comedy, it is completely self-aware of what it is and embraces it with pleasure. The child performances from Corey Haim, Jamison Newlander and Corey Feldman are terrific; they have an incredible sense of comedic timing and their chemistry is absolutely legendary. In retrospect, the vampires could’ve been better developed — even if their lust for blood is beautifully exploited by Schumacher’s sexual direction. They lack any form of motivation, on Star and/or Michael. Kiefer Sutherland does deliver a solid performance, but I’d wish we would spend more time on him and his cult, to better understand their lust. But it doesn’t really matter, as the film never disappoints. Its soundtrack (and score from Thomas Newman) screams “late 80s”, its cinematography and music-video visual style perfectly complements what we see on-screen. It’s an incredible piece of 80s-pulp that begs not to be taken ever-so-seriously if you want to appreciate it to the fullest, and bathe in its ridiculous camp. I invite you all to step into Santa Clara and stomach all those damn Vampires for your viewing pleasure. You won’t be disappointed.
