The Lost Boys is the 26th instalment of True, I have skipped around at different times, picking up books at markets, and back-tracking when reading in holidays with books spread between holiday houses and venues, but they always deliver. The Lost Boys of Sudan The Lost Boys of Sudan Students learn where the Lost Boys are from and how they got their name. Then they watch an excerpt from the film, God Grew Tired of Us, and write about it. Feb 28, 2020 A new report indicates that the upcoming The Lost Boys remake on The CW will race swap one of the main characters. According to a report by Deadline, actor Branden Cook will take on the lead role of Garrett. Deadline details that Garrett along with his younger brother and mother will move to a North Carolina seaside community. The Lost Boys are a group of ragtag young boys led by Peter Pan in Neverland in Disney's 1953 animated feature film, Peter Pan. 1 Background 2 Appearances 2.1 Peter Pan 2.2 Return to Never Land 2.3 House of Mouse 2.4 Other appearances 3 Live-action appearances 3.1 Once Upon a Time 4 Video games.
Over the years, my background in studying film has cultivated my memory into a well-curated database of movies. My lists, filed by theory and genre, include films that run the gamut, from the elite to the avant garde. If someone were to ask what I would recommend for teaching a class on editing and auteur theory, I would suggest Citizen Kane (1941). If the question were about framing or depth, my first inclination would be The Searchers (1956).Need something on the emotional resonance of sustained montage? Easy: Battleship Potemkin (1925).And, if you ever wanted to properly dissect a film’s clear and unabashed look into queer culture, then look no further than the “Kiefer Sutherland sporting a leather jacket and fangs” late 80s classic, The Lost Boys.
There are many secrets I’ve kept to myself over the years, and when I look back on those secrets now, I realize they all have to do with sex. Growing up in a Puerto Rican/Catholic household, there were certain parameters to navigating everyday life. Although my family took precautions to filter what I learned (and when) regarding sexuality, it’s safe to say that most of it was blatantly unsuccessful—though it did succeed in arousing my curiosity about the world outside of the bubble they had erected around my childhood. And, fortunately for me, they did allow one seemingly innocuous movie to slip through the cracks.
Which is why, at 9 years old, The Lost Boys was the queerest movie I had ever seen and I loved the ever-loving hell out of it.
The reason I’ve now decided to fly my fang flag high is twofold: to bring awareness to a film which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and, more importantly, to explain how The Lost Boys came to represent one of my earliest forays into queer cinema.
Ask anyone who studies film: the late ‘80s was an awfully bizarre time for sexuality in movies. The best way to describe American culture at the time is as a kind of shapeless limbo between women’s blazers (with shoulder pads) and C + C Music Factory. Couple that with the fact that my personal introduction into puberty was a slow, painful slog through musty armpits and the bucket of bees I seemingly swallowed whenever girls were around, and you can start to see why such a movie might leave a lasting imprint on me. Before the Basic Instinct crotch-shot or Madonna’s Sex book, there were two films that made me experience myself as a living, breathing sexual creature. One was Weird Science—and the other one featured vampiric glamour boys, rocking earrings and leather jackets.
Up until that point, my exposure to vampires in film and literature was rather limited (this was before Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Interview with a Vampire, two films which reinvigorated—and reinvented, for some—the vampireas a hyper-sexualized creature in Western cinema). I had very little that would serve as a solid reference for the vampire; the essence of the creature was probably best matched in Fright Night which, at the very least, retained its origins in horror. Unfortunately, movies like Once Bitten and the The Vampire’s Kiss, save for some early Nicolas Cage antics in the latter, were barely watchable. American films tended to neuter the vampire. Even in their more classic portrayals—Bela Lugosi’s titular films Dracula and Nosferatu—the vampire was very much “other” in the sense that they were not truly men, serving instead as evil creatures. Lugosi’s charm and gravitas would definitely influence the look and stature of the vampire, even to this day, but he lacked the brooding sexuality that would become the staple of True Blood or the Twilight movies.
At least, that’s what I originally thought.
In reality, the vampire has always represented a relative “other-ness” that is very much in line with queer culture. If one were to look back at Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula, it would be easy to read him as a strictly hetero-normative antagonist for our characters to eventually conquer. Even within its literary origins, Dracula and his male counterparts seem to possess a purely “as advertised” clash of good vs. evil. For the women caught in between these two figures, Dracula is the dark romance for which gothic literature is known.
Yet within this rather specific power dynamic of man vs. predator (or purity vs. damnation), what often gets overlooked is the queer subtext of its characters. Be it in its archetypes or the relationships held by its characters, Dracula has always been a subverted narrative of the male will attempting to overcome a primal, homogeneous hunger. Even in appearance, Dracula stands as a queer symbol manifested to threaten other male characters in the story. When we first come to meet Dracula in Stoker’s classic novel, Harker’s slow reveal of his hosts’ odd features lends itself to a primarily intimate and detailed study of the man’s face.
His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
The moment Dracula saves Harker, demanding that he “belongs to me,” can be read as evidence that Dracula’s insistence to keep him alive is mainly due to his captive’s specific skill set (i.e. the deeds Dracula needs completed before his trip across the sea). But if viewed through the lens of queer theory, the obvious coupling of the two characters, and their their intertwined fates, sets both Harker and Dracula closer to a vastly more intimate relationship than what is on the page. In Lugosi’s portrayal, the relationships and interrelationships of its male characters are what carry the narrative. The male vampire hunters attempt to unite in order to protect Mina from Dracula’s corruption can be seen as male characters’ defense against a threat upon their sexuality. They aren’t so much fighting over the souls of the damsels (both Lucy and Mina in the original text), but against the queerness of Dracula’s influence.
Which leads me back to the first time I saw The Lost Boys. Whereas there was a clear subversion of queer themes within the earlier film and the classic story, I found there was nothing really subverted in The Lost Boys at all. At 9 years old I watched it from start to finish, on loop, because everything was on the table; no stone was left unturned. Even though I lacked the proper vocabulary and insight to give these feelings a name, the characters, plot, setting, and dialogue oozed allusions to queer culture. Hell, even the catchy theme song—“Cry Little Sister” by Gerard McMahon, which boasts such lyrics as “Unchain me sister/Love is with your brother”—leaves very little to the imagination.
The vampires in the film were unlike anything I had ever seen before. Instead of ghoulish recluses, they walked amongst the humans of Santa Clara. Both brothers, Michael and Sam, moved to the town as a support for their mother—but what Michael finds instead is an attraction to Star, a young woman he spots on the boardwalk during the “I Still Believe” scene (for those who miss shirtless saxophone solos, just Youtube it). It’s this attraction that eventually leads Michael to be initiated into a vampire biker gang led by David (a young Kiefer Sutherland).
Though Michael’s initial coercion stemmed from his attraction to Star, in this moment he gives himself—and is left changed by—his attraction to the lost boys lifestyle (“Lost Boys” being an allusion to the clan of boys in Peter Pan who never wanted to grow up, and despised every girl except a fairy). The scene where David tells Michael to “Let go” because “You’re one of us” is followed by an odd sequence where Michael seems to be flying, or free-falling, landing on his bed a changed man.
The relationship of Michael to these outlying, roguish men is the central focus of the entire film. We even find out later that Star is not so much a love interest for David but rather someone he has decided to use as a sexual lure: she serves as “bait” not only to ensnare Michael, but to fulfill his transformation upon her death. In other words, the only way Michael can truly become a “lost boy” is by literally killing his heterosexual urges, a theory which is alluded to during his initiation in the lost boys’ den. After drinking the bottle of blood, Michael falls into a trance. We see Star’s superimposed face peering back at him, which hints at his attraction for her. She is quickly replaced by an image of David’s smiling face, as he seductively whispers Michael’s name over and over.
This was as shocking to me at 9 years old as it is hilarious to me now. Unlike the original Dracula, there is very little subtext here. The lost boys themselves, while wild and savage, were free. Despite their wild antics, the townsfolk seem to turn a blind eye to their existence. A scene that especially stands out is when Michael’s younger brother finds out he has been turned into a vampire. His initial reaction is to threaten to “tell mom,” as if Michael’s secret was something he could “out.”
Regardless of how much of a guilty pleasure it is, The Lost Boys isn’t without its faults. The goofiness of some scenes doesn’t always gel with its horror elements, and certain scenes—if dissected through queer theory—can be quite problematic. For instance, I found it quite disturbing that Michael unsuccessfully tries to prey on his younger brother while he bathes—an odd allusion to homophobic stereotypes that, while played for laughs, only complicates the subtext. Likewise, the fact that Michael reverts back to his former self after the lost boys (and their secret “Vamp Daddy”) are destroyed can be seen as a disturbing answer to “cure” him of their influence. The only thing I can cite to offset those types of narratives is that the film was marketed as a horror/comedy directed by Joel Schumacher, years before he slapped nipples on a Batman and called it art.
I, for one, still secretly (and now, not so secretly) adore this movie. Schumacher, an openly gay director and screenwriter, took on the film when it lost its original director. The original concept for The Lost Boys was to be grounded in Horror, but many believe that Schumacher’s decision to insert some camp and humor did wonders for the cult following the movie has garnered. Personally, I think that what I saw 30 years ago is still worth dedicating an entire film class to, watching and analyzing it, scene by scene.
Come for the homoerotic subtext, stay for the shirtless saxophonist.
The beach. Motorcycles. Leather jackets and sunglasses. And of course, vampires. These are just a few of the artifacts that you have to put in a circle to summon the late '80s majesty that is The Lost Boys. With an all-star cast of Kiefer Sutherland, Diane Wiest, and the iconic two Coreys (that is, Haim and Feldman), along with contemporaries like Alex Winter and Jason Patric, this teen horror thriller secured a permanent space in the hall of cult classics.
So have you checked it out recently or was the last time you watched it in a Santa Cruz movie theater way back in 1987? If it's been a while, there's a lot you might have missed, so here are some things about The Lost Boys that you only notice as an adult.
It's based on Peter Pan
It's pretty obvious to adults that The Lost Boys is based on Peter Pan. For one, the title itself refers to characters from the original play and subsequent adaptations. If you're a kid, though, you might not notice the connection because the director, Joel Schumacher, made changes to the screenplay to make it sexier. Most notably, he made the vampires older and more attractive, in an effort to avoid making a 'Goonies go vampire' film. So while the lost boys of the film may be closer to men, they'll still never grow up or grow old.
Max has access to people's personal information, and that's scary
Back in the '80s, there was no internet so you couldn't pull up Netflix to watch movies on your non-existent smartphone, obviously. Rather, you were at the mercy of your local video store, which would have a limited stock of VHS cassette tapes for rent. And to set up an account, you often had to furnish a copy of your driver's license, often with a credit card to pay for your purchase.
That means the proprietor of the shop would have access to a lot of personal information, including where you live. If you were looking to target people, running a video store was a good way to do it, making it the perfect job for a murderer. So it's not surprising that Max — spoiler alert: the head vampire — chose that profession for himself as the perfect cover. You might not put that together as a kid, but it's hard to miss as an adult.
It portrays divorce realistically
Studies suggest that 40 to 50 percent of American couples will go through a divorce in their lifetime, which is a lot of people. It's well known, too, that divorces can be messy and volatile, as well as traumatic for everyone involved, especially children. And The Lost Boys acknowledges this in a subtle exchange between Lucy and her father toward the beginning of the film, when they first arrive in Santa Carla.
Her father notes that she didn't 'improve her situation' through her divorce, while Lucy argues that 'a big legal battle wasn't going to improve anybody's situation.' So Lucy clearly isn't getting much support in the form of alimony, but she walked away just to have a clean break, which is understandable.
There are other moments where it's addressed again, such as when Max assures Sam that he's not trying to replace his father during the dinner scene. It's all handled in a very real, adult way.
Michael stalks Star
Michael may not be the villain in the film, but he certainly has a creepy streak. This is most evident in his pursuit of Star, who catches his attention while dancing during the iconic 'I Still Believe' scene. He stares at her, obviously overcome with desire, even though he's never even had a conversation with her. He then proceeds to stare at her pointedly, not looking away until she acknowledges his gaze.
When she eventually turns and leaves, he follows her out of the venue and it's honestly really creepy — women don't appreciate strange men following them home in the dark. It sounds like everyone can empathize with Sam, then, who at one point proclaims to Michael that he's 'at the mercy of [Michael's] sex drive.'
Michael inexplicably knows where Hudson's Bluff is
By the time Michael catches up with Star after the concert, she's back with the other vampires, who are poised and ready to ride out on their motorcycles. But David doesn't shoo Michael away as you might expect. Instead, he presents Michael with a challenge, daring him to keep up with the pack. He then asks Michael if he knows where Hudson's Bluff is — which is where the vampires sleep — and surprisingly, Michael says he does.
He just moved there, so how is it possible that he's telling the truth? Unless of course in the years of visiting his grandfather in Santa Carla, he's learned about Hudson's Bluff. But during the chase, he comes inches away from riding his bike off of a cliff to a watery death, affirming that he's clearly not familiar with the area.
There are gay undertones
You wouldn't pick up on any of this as a kid, but The Lost Boys has a host of gay undertones, ranging from fan theory to frank observations. For one, Sam is not exactly the pillar of hegemonic masculinity. Rather, he's a sensitive, tender person who's always wearing bright, flamboyant clothing, which arguably could just be a coincidence. But couple that with the fact that he sings in the bathtub about not having a man and has a giant, sexy Rob Lowe poster in his literal closet, and it seems more obvious that he could be gay.
Then there are the vampire boys, who all sleep in the same room and do everything together. Could it be, perhaps, that their leather-forward outfits hint at an interest in the underground gay culture of the 1980s? They all drank David's bodily fluids, after all, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. And why are none of them hooking up with Star, the only woman who's ever around? That would certainly explain the dramatic tension between David and Michael.
Sexy sax man has become an icon
It's impossible to discuss homoeroticism in The Lost Boys and not mention sexy sax man, the glistening, muscle-bound heartthrob performing front and center at a concert with majority male attendees. He alternates between singing, playing the saxophone, and gyrating while wearing only tight purple pants, a codpiece, and a selection of jangling chains. Sam and Michael can't help but bust out big grins when they see him for the first time.
Back in the 1980s this didn't seem like such a big deal, as the style of the times was certainly flamboyant. But as an adult, sexy sax man definitely qualifies as a gay icon. He's become something of a legend, captivating audiences and inspiring a Saturday Night Liveparody skit featuring Jon Hamm playing Sergio.
The lead actors are all white
The fictional city of Santa Carla is apparently quite white, as all of the lead actors in The Lost Boys are Caucasian. Some minorities were cast in smaller roles, as is evident during the 'People Are Strange' montage, where Latinx folks are featured prominently. Additionally, the host who lets Lucy use the restaurant phone is black.
But Santa Cruz, the city Santa Carla was based on, shows a little more diversity in the demographic data from the 1980s and 1990s than that, making a case for at least one lead to be a person of color. It's not surprising that this didn't happen though, as studies show that Hollywood has a pretty severe diversity problem.
It fails the Bechdel Test
In addition to a lack of racial equality, there's not a lot of gender diversity in film either, which fails the Bechdel Test pretty remarkably. While there are two female lead characters with names — Lucy and Star — they never have a conversation with each other. And since they never speak, the third criteria, which is that they talk about something other than men, doesn't apply.
The Lost Boys Streaming
Some folks have argued that Lucy asks Star 'Who are you?' at the end, but that's not what was said. Instead, Lucy asks the entire room 'Who's this?' which is even worse. She didn't even ask Star herself who she was, denying her the agency of answering.
There's a gang initiation
The Lost Boys 123movies
David and the other vampires put Michael through a hazing so intense that it could qualify as a gang initiation. According to Dr. Mike Carlie, an emeritus professor of sociology and criminology at Missouri State University, one way that gangs initiate members is called Blood In or Blood Out — they either kill someone to gain entry into a gang, or kill someone to be allowed out of the gang. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a different definition of Blood Out, meaning that you only leave the gang when you die, but either definition works here.
Jami Gertz
So when David and the other vampires descend on a group of Surf Nazis (conveniently when 'Walk this Way' is playing, signaling conformity) and go on a killing spree, Michael is expected to participate. Doing so would make him a full vampire, as well as an official member of their tribe. But Michael holds back, never fully joining the gang.