Wednesday, December 9, 2009

January 22, 2010 - The Lost Boys

My pal Joey and I caught a preview screening of The Lost Boys at Century 22 a week or so before it's July 31st opening back in 1987. The film, shot near our hometown at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, was a fun mix of comedy and horror. As the tagline says: Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.

What's not to like?

A few weeks after it opened, we spent a weekend at a cheap motel in Santa Cruz, right off the Boardwalk. On our first day there, we ran into a street vendor who did airbrush art. We each had a black pullover hooded sweatshirt, and asked him to do them up with "Santa Carla, Home of the Lost Boys" on the back - the last part in dripping blood. Turns out he was featured in the opening credits of the film, and more than happy to do them for us. Sadly, you couldn't see him on home video for years until a widescreen LaserDisc was released. He was cropped out of the pan & scan version, so for years no one believed our story. But for that weekend, we spent the days and nights on the boardwalk in our Lost Boys sweatshirts, denying involvement in the film to everyone who asked. Of course, there's nothing like denying something to convince someone you're not telling them the truth. Needless to say, we enjoyed our short-lived celebrity status. The title of Lost Boys stuck with us for years, and we revisit the film fondly even now - more than 20 years later.

Forget Twilight. Come see Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patrick lead the original cool teen vampires on January 22nd.

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