THE LOST BOYS

After her divorce, Lucy moves with her two sons, Michael and Sam, to the Californian town of Santa Carla in the hope of finding some rest and putting some order into her life. One evening, in search of entertainment on the crowded streets of the town, Michael and Sam come across Stella, a mysterious girl whom Michael immediately falls in love with. Determined to go all the way, Michael is taken by Stella to meet David, the charismatic leader of a gang of metalhead bikers and... vampires. Santa Carla will not turn out to be the ideal place for those seeking a bit of serenity. Brought to light by Joel Schumacher in the mid-1980s, this film could be considered, without too many obstacles, the American cultural testament that the years of Ronald Reagan leave to the new decade that is about to begin. A testament that summarizes everything that, for better or worse, the 1980s brought and everything for which they are usually remembered and mentioned. Pop music and new wave, punk hairstyles, the roaring engines of motorcycles, flashy outfits with shoulder pads... these are the true protagonists of the work, and the real story that Schumacher seems to want to tell the public appears to be more that of the mythical decade than that of the vampires roaming Santa Carla. For all these reasons, it would not be foolish to consider "The Lost Boys" a film of 'value' as it presents itself to our eyes as a sincere and genuine fresco of an entire decade and all the generations that followed, a perfect cultural mosaic capable of immortalizing with care the Yankee society of those years. But for the very same reasons, "The Lost Boys" might risk being considered a film that has aged poorly, annoying for its blatantly '80s look and therefore misunderstood by all the new generations for whom it might seem excessively enslaved to the years in which it was born and difficult to decontextualize. But it matters little if the glamour of those years is too ostentatious because, in the end, "The Lost Boys" turns out to be a film that works, a delightful work that manages to combine, with naturalness and spirit of invention, two souls in one body... horror and comedy. It is certainly not the first time that these two genres coexist in a vampire film; just think (among the many examples that could be given) that only two years earlier, Tom Holland had given us an excellent demonstration with his "Fright Night," but despite everything, Schumacher's film still manages to enjoy its own freshness without ever being excessively derivative of something previously made. Much of the film's success is certainly due to the amused and at the same time amusing way in which the film observes the youth universe with its desire to emerge and assert itself within a society where conformity is the order of the day. A conformity that can only lead inevitably to the total loss of identity, of one's self, here metaphorically represented by the subjugation of vampirism. But in this society prey to conformism, where young people tend to uniform themselves according to fashions and lifestyles, there cannot certainly be missing the misfits, the outcasts... those who do not accept conformity and rebel against the system. This is the case of Sam, Michael's younger brother, who refuses to join the 'mass' and prefers to fight it by joining the two odd Frog Brothers, two boys who run a comic book store and, as a part-time job, hunt vampires. But the sociological reading that emerges from the images of "The Lost Boys" does not stop there; interesting is the discussion concerning the internal crisis that permeates the family institution in modern society. A family that now lacks cohesion (Lucy, mother of Michael and Sam, is a divorcee) and is unable to properly fulfill all the duties that are its responsibility as the first educator. And it is precisely in the relationship between parents and children that the greatest family difficulties can be inferred, difficulties that emerge from the inability/carelessness of the former to establish an adequate dialogue or the excessive and often premature impulse of the latter to obtain independence. The crumbling of the primary family corresponds to the birth of 'second families' acquired, lacking a true marital structure, more assimilable to a community (like the famous family supported by Charles Manson) and which is represented here by David's lair and his gang of vampire-punks that the unwary Michael would like to join. Beyond all this, "The Lost Boys" presents itself as a worthy product even from a technical point of view. Schumacher, in transferring into images what was a 'light' but effective screenplay, uses excellent camera movements often characterized by a skillful use of the dolly and the flycam. One could have done better as far as the characterization of the characters is concerned, which is somewhat inhomogeneous: while Michael and his brother Sam receive a very good delineation, all the others are destined to remain a bit too much in the background... in particular David and his entire gang. To a characterization of the characters that is perhaps not always successful corresponds, however, a good cast that sees the faces of Jason Patric and Corey Haim who are respectively Michael and Sam; Kiefer Sutherland, in one of his first cinematic experiences, is the charismatic David and Corey Feldman plays one of the two Frog Brothers, grotesque and overly exaggerated characters who, despite everything, represent the true raison d'être of the film. The soundtrack is flawless, rich in unforgettable 1980s tracks capable of magnificently accompanying the images and providing greater emphasis to the story told. Its ability to be a delightful teen movie and at the same time a fun horror film about vampires undoubtedly makes it a successful film.